Don't study nursing in N.ireland

pookie5488

Just a wee vent. Due to qualify in seven weeks after three years of bloody hard work and there are very few nursing posts in any of our hospitals. No-one I know has got a job and we are all being encouraged to take jobs as care assistants in nursing homes. So if your daughter/son is thinking of starting a nursing degree at Queens tell them not to bother!!
Thanks Tony Blair, btw every ward I have been on placement on has been understaffed but cannot afford to take on more nurses.:mad:

NAR

Very sad state of affairs, I'm sure most of us have noticed understaffing on wards for a considerable period of time. Are they still recruiting nurses from overseas?

Parisien

Pookie sorry to hear of your plight, I note also that last years output of Physios are still not employed, ie around 80% jobless, or gone to GB for a job, doubtless not to return.

If you are in the RCN, take it up with them, get them to take it up with the Minister for Health, local MLA after all thats what you are paying your subs/taxes for!

In the NI region they expect to save £338 million over the next 3 years in the NHS, I wonder how!!!

NAR

Parisien wrote: »

In the NI region they expect to save £338 million over the next 3 years in the NHS, I wonder how!!!

In the rationalisation of the Health Boards.

Parisien

Nope..this is additional savings, on top of RPA...called efficiency savings at 3% p.a. each year til 2011.

Robothell

Pookie, I feel for you. My OH is a nurse and the amount of rubbish you have to put up with is scandalous......and that's if you're "lucky" enough to get a job! Physical, verbal and even sexual abuse from patients and their relatives is all in a day's work, but people think it's all like an episode of Casualty. I have raised issues with the health service and nursing in general on this board before (specifically trying to point out how insulting the bursary was as a means of cheap labour) and it did not go down to well (see post).

Let's also now consider the fact that junior doctors' training has radically changed and there will be thousands of trained doctors who have worked in the NHS for years in the UK who will be unemployed come 1st August when the "changeover" takes place (see BMA site)......the NHS is in trouble MSE'ers, on all fronts. Less doctors, less nurses, less physios, less OTs, less Speech and Language, less social work, less funding......and as people are living longer the financial stress on the NHS coffers is even larger. Now it doesn't take a genius to see this is all going to end in a disaster.....although the less said about Patsie Hewitt the better.

These issues affect us all, and are deep to the bone of all MSE issues. We have a free health service in this country.......if we don't fight the current plans to downsize we will end up like the states and Australia.....people who can afford healthcare will be well looked after as they pay through their nose while those without will have to make do with the scraps thrown their way.

pookie5488

Thanks guys for all your support.
Feeling really low at the moment, most girls on my course are young and live at home so the bank of mum and dad is at hand.
I am a mature student with a partner and a 8 yr old daughter so a job is essential to students like me.
I think what annoys me more is that queens are still taking on approx 400 student nurses per year (thats 18,000 in bursary over 3 yrs and god knows what amount to queens for course fees being paid by the gov out of taxes!!!) All this is doing is causing a backlog. BTW 12 nurses from the course got a job in one belfast hospital last year and on their first day they were joined by 24 foreign nurses!!!
Absolute madness

leftieM

Robothell wrote: »

Let's also now consider the fact that junior doctors' training has radically changed and there will be thousands of trained doctors who have worked in the NHS for years in the UK who will be unemployed come 1st August when the "changeover" takes place (see BMA site)......

I for one am glad to hear that at last there will be some sort of market forces acting on doctor recrutiment. It is scandalous how much control the BMA has over the intake at universities and the salaries these people are paid.
The rest of us have to compete for jobs and accept bog standard wages. I don't see why that shouldn't apply to health professionals.

isaacsmum

leftieM wrote: »

I for one am glad to hear that at last there will be some sort of market forces acting on doctor recrutiment. It is scandalous how much control the BMA has over the intake at universities and the salaries these people are paid.
The rest of us have to compete for jobs and accept bog standard wages. I don't see why that shouldn't apply to health professionals.

Lets hope, then, leftieM that you don't need to go in the hospital after 1st August, because there will be no junior doctors to see you and start any treatment and there won't be enough experienced qualified nurses to look after you as senior nurses have been downgraded or moved into management posts after workforce reviews due to the 2.5% efficiency savings that are required or due to PCT amalgamations!
What you all need to ask yourselves is are all the layers of management in the NHS necessary - what do they do all day? - and if like me you think they are not, then complain to the Trusts and your MP etc

NAR

I can assure you layers of management are being reduced. Also a number of jobs are being downgraded and people being forced to apply for their own jobs in a downgraded position.

Robothell

leftieM wrote: »

I for one am glad to hear that at last there will be some sort of market forces acting on doctor recrutiment. It is scandalous how much control the BMA has over the intake at universities and the salaries these people are paid.
The rest of us have to compete for jobs and accept bog standard wages. I don't see why that shouldn't apply to health professionals.

At this stage I would like to quote Eric Idle:
"All the information age has given is weight to the uninformed opinion".

To pick your points apart one by one.
1) The Labour government has already admitted that more doctors are required for the NHS to run smoothly. They designed the MMC system to create more consultants in less time. By reducing the number of training posts however, they have made it very difficult for doctors to progress to a consultant grade, instead hoping that most experienced doctors will get fed up trying and go into 9-5 Staff Grade posts continuing to provide a service on the wards as they currently are. It's a lot cheaper to employ inexperienced doctors and train them up fast than take experienced staff and try to push them through, it just means that the new consultants will not have the breadth of experience that they traditionally had.

2) The BMA does not decide how many doctors are taken in to universities, they are essentially a trade union. The professional body that does decide this is the General Medical Council. The BMA are involved in salary negotiations however in their role as a trade union, just like NIPSA, UNISON and NASUWT to name but a few.

3) Doctors have always competed for jobs, do you think once you qualify in medicine you have a job for life? The problem is that the government has placed a glass ceiling above some trainees' heads. People who have worked in training jobs in the UK for years, looking after your friends and relatives, organising investigations and treating illnesses that arise have been put in a position that means they can never progress to Consultant in the field they have been training in. This has been done without any reason or fairness to the proceedings. People who have poured years of their life into the NHS have been unfairly prevented from progressing in their career.

I can only assume from your post that you have an over-inflated idea of what doctors earn. While there are some areas that salaries can look like phone numbers, all of these are in the private sector. Compared to other professionals such as solicitors and accountants, doctors are at the bottom of the ladder. Junior doctors leave university with, on average, £20,000 of debt from medical school. We are the only group exempt from the European Working Time Directive, in that we are expected to work 56 hours per week instead of 48hrs for other public sector workers. From experience, there isn't one hospital job in this country that complies with this directive, and most doctors work in excess of 70 hours without worry for patient safety or remuneration in the form of overtime (which in fairness is the least of most doctors' worries). It's very difficult to tell someone you're off shift when their relative is unwell and you are the closest point of help. It's all to do with the "duty of care" that is held over every health professionals' head.

When I started working a few years back, it was before the introduction of the EWTD and I worked, on average, 105 hours a week, including one period every seven days where I was in work and on duty for 36 hours without break or sleep. Thankfully these days are over. By the time my salary was broken down to an hourly rate, I was earning about £3.50 an hour. I earned more in bar work as a student. Bearing in mind that most of my childhood friends are tradesmen (sparks, plumbers and the like), knowing what money they are on makes me want to change career.

All of these points have been raised in the national media for the last few months, as well as on the BMA, Remedy UK and Northern Irish medics webpages. I suggest that you perhaps have a little read around before commenting on posts that you have a limited understanding of.

My apologies for highjacking this thread for junior doctors' issues when the OP is about issues with nurses training, it was not my intention.