Can I lose my nursing post?

milliemonster

I have been employed by my acute trust for the last 2 years, due to the recent health bill and the potential changes in commissioning this is going to cause, the PCT have told the Trust they are no longer going to pay for as many services as previously which is leading the Trust to close beds, this in turn means that in my locality which is cardiology (I work on a busy coronary care unit which is a regional referral centre) which currently consists of 2 wards and a CCU, one of the wards of 28 beds is having to close to save the Trust circa £1m.

Leaving the issue of the fact that we currently do not have enough beds to run the service as it is (we frequently have to move post heart attack patients to surgical wards to create bed space for new admissions so have no idea how we are going to run a regional cardiology service with 28 beds less), what is starting to concern us is the ward manager of the ward that is closing is fighting for all staff across cardiology to be reinterviewed for our jobs instead of the staff from the ward closing being redeployed to other areas throughout the Trust.

Bear in mind that currently, each ward has their own separate budget, manager and staff skills, can anyone advise if this is a possibility? I was specifically employed not to cardiology but to the specific unit where I work and it's unnerved me that I may now even though I have a substantive post, have to be reinterviewed for my job.

Just to highlight that where other wards have closed throughout the Trust, these staff have been redeployed to fill vacancies in other areas, no staff have (as yet) been made redundant.

anamenottaken

milliemonster wrote: »

I have been employed by my acute trust for the last 2 years, due to the recent health bill and the potential changes in commissioning this is going to cause, the PCT have told the Trust they are no longer going to pay for as many services as previously which is leading the Trust to close beds, this in turn means that in my locality which is cardiology (I work on a busy coronary care unit which is a regional referral centre) which currently consists of 2 wards and a CCU, one of the wards of 28 beds is having to close to save the Trust circa £1m.

Leaving the issue of the fact that we currently do not have enough beds to run the service as it is (we frequently have to move post heart attack patients to surgical wards to create bed space for new admissions so have no idea how we are going to run a regional cardiology service with 28 beds less), what is starting to concern us is the ward manager of the ward that is closing is fighting for all staff across cardiology to be reinterviewed for our jobs instead of the staff from the ward closing being redeployed to other areas throughout the Trust.

Bear in mind that currently, each ward has their own separate budget, manager and staff skills, can anyone advise if this is a possibility? I was specifically employed not to cardiology but to the specific unit where I work and it's unnerved me that I may now even though I have a substantive post, have to be reinterviewed for my job.

Just to highlight that where other wards have closed throughout the Trust, these staff have been redeployed to fill vacancies in other areas, no staff have (as yet) been made redundant.

I think you are saying you were recruited to a specific unit - but that unit is part of the cardiology specialty.

Presumably the staff working on the wards/CCU also believe they were recruited to a specific unit - because that is the way you are managed.

Though you say the skills are specific to the wards, surely there is more overlap of those skills within the overall unit than there is with the hospital specialties in general? On that basis I would have thought that putting you all into a pool is sensible rather than just slot the one ward's staff into other areas and lose those skills. It would be better to have the best skills in the units to which they relate.

I personally think that putting the staff into a single pool is better that simply dispersing the staff from one ward. Is that not the way to produce the best service for the patients?

dseventy

If you are on a standard A4C contract you will see that whilst you will work on a specific ward, you are expected to move around as per clinical/patient/trust needs.

D70

LottieLou

I get the impression that you are on the unit that isn't being closed? It's awful that you are being faced with the possibility of re-interviewing for your own job. I can imagine what staff morale/anxiety levels are currently like.

I think the manager of the closing unit is campaigning for a fair option. As awful as it is, a skill mix of staff from both units would be better for patient care overall. The manager would also feel threatened aswell because there would no longer be a post for him/her.

It is unlikely that you will 'lose' your job, but the likelihood of you/other staff members being re assigned to other units would be quite high. The possibility of senior/highly experienced staff members being 'asked' to drop a banding in pay isnt something bigwigs at their desks would be ruling out (in my experience).

Are the 28 beds being closed all at once or is the unit gradually decomissioning? As the trust/bed managers see the impact of this change, any plan that is made now would be likely to change again (also just my experience).

What is really concerning, is how staff on other units are being supported in caring for patients that should be cared for by nurses like yourself in the cardiac speciality.I wonder if/when the media will highlight this major cut in services.

So sorry your having to go through this! Good luck.

CKhalvashi

My mother is in the same situation, on a management level. She’s with me now, leaving in 2 seconds, so I won’t be able to expand any more on this tonight.

Dependant on hospital, you could be re-integrated onto another ward, as I know in the one she works in there are the same number of beds over fewer wards. This also means the same number of staff, as (I think) 2 departments are coming in from somewhere else as part of a reshuffle. The result in the end will be 15% more beds in the same sized hospital, thus saving on building costs.

It will depend on your exact contract, however may be worth speaking to HR within your own trust.

CK