General Discussion
As this is a very topical General Election/Brexit topic right now I thought this might be of interest especially as we keep hearing about understaffing in the NHS.
Royal Devon & Exeter = over 70 job vacancies see http://jobs.rdehospital.nhs.uk/
Torbay and S. Devon NHS Foundation Trust = 6o job vacancies see https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/xi/search_vacancy?action=page&page=1
Including this one in Dawlish for a staff nurse
Staff Nurse - Dawlish Hospital
General Medicine
Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, DAWLISH
Staff Nurse – Band 5 – 37.5 hours rotational If you are compassionate, flexible and have an innovative mind we have an exciting opportunity within our team. As a Staff nurse you will be supporting the day-to-day running of the ward, co-ordinating the clinical care activity, and ensuring the ...
Salary:
£24,214 to £30,112 per annum
Posted:
03/12/2019
Job Type:
Permanent
Closing Date:
17/12/2019
Staff Group:
Nursing & Midwifery Registered
Job Ref:
388-A8045-ROSE
and it seems there's also a shortage of dentists
Dental crisis is worse in Devon and Cornwall than anywhere in England
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/dental-crisis-worse-devon-cornwall-3556505
Don't worry Lynne.
Boris has said (It's the truth) that he is getting 50,000 new nurses.
I'm sure the dentists will follow soon as the NHS will be safe in the Tories hands.
PS. The Pigs are all fed and ready to Fly.
Ah yes! that 'new' nurses number .............another of Boris's porkies?.
Piers Morgan tears into Conservative minister Nicky Morgan on GMB over Boris Johnson's 'nonsense' pledge for 50,000 more NHS nurses as it is revealed 18,500 will be retained from EXISTING staff
Tax payers money trains them and of they go and never look back maybe they should be contracted for say 4 years to work in the UK.
I've just read the articles in those two links.
I may have misread them but it seems to me that the first is concerned with the migration of trained nurses from developing countries (eg Jamaica) to developed ones (eg the UK) and the second concerns Irish (as in Republic of Ireland) trained nurses and the possibilty of their being targetted to emigrate to work in the UK.
There is certainly a questionable morality about enticing nurses trained in other countries (especially developing ones) to then leave those countries to come and work here in the UK.
Perhaps there should be a world wide international agreement that all nurses and doctors and dentists should stay put for, say, 4 years in whatever country it is that has trained them?
I wonder how such a scenario would impact the NHS.
The reason i posted the above is because a relative who lives in Australia and has recently just returned home told me that 8 out of 10 nurses in her local city hospital are English and most newly qualified. She also told me that recrutement staff visit universaties in the UK to recruit newly qualified nurses so maybe just maybe this is part of the problem.
So ask yourself this then.
Why are those UK trained nurses so eager to leave the UK?
Is Australia short of nurses? (It would seem so).
Australia is seemingly doing to the UK the same as the UK does to other countries.
.
The reasons are simple more money less hours and i wonder if they still have to pay of there student loans. The point is should it not be that nurses trained here should at least be contracted to work 4 or 5 years in the NHS. So could also be that the lack of staff within the NHS is the direct result of a flawed system that allows student nurses to qualify at taxpayers expense and then turn there backs on the country that trained them.
So if the reasons are more money and less hours then those with control over the NHS (the government) are being told something, don't you think?
As far as I am aware those with student loans still have to repay them even if they no longer live in this country.
If you do an online search using words like, NHS Nursing Shortage, you will find lots of links with articles giving various reasons why this is the case.
This is one of the more recent articles https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/news/support-staff-and-nurses-from-abroad-plugging-shortages-in-nhs-workforce
Calling Boris Johnson! Calling Boris Johnson!
Andrew Neil has some questions he would like to ask you including your promises concerning the NHS.
Click here to find out what those questions are https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-50681041/neil-to-johnson-not-too-late-for-election-interview?fbclid=IwAR2FxgVPo7n0ewxI8VXY9j29RcxtRJy58zrkaT2OFMOido6fRZyJmuW7E5M
The NHS is funded from general taxation which also includes revenues from sales tax, taxes on company profits, income tax, capital taxes, excise duty and other taxes.
The NHS is good value compared with american health care spending. While 9.1% of UK total national income is spend on health care, it’s nearly double that in USA. Each American person spends nearly twice of much of their income on health care as their British counterpart.
When the NHS was launched in 1948, it had a budget of £437 million (roughly £15 billion at today's value). For 2015/16, the overall NHS budget was around £116.4 billion. That’s around £1,785 (approx US $2,320) per UK resident or £3,865 (approx US $ 5,000) worker. In Australia they have medicare workers pay in 2% of there salary but this doesn't cover everything if you require a ambulance you have to pay for it. The NHS is under huge pressure but we need to rethink it. Go to any AE on a Friday Saturday night and its full of those who have drunk to excess and those who have mixed drugs and booze maybe it's time to make these people pay heavily for there care at the end of the day it's self inflicted.
My Mother and I both work in the NHS. And I agree many English people do drink and take drugs excessively. But also many English people are obese and eat far too much unhealthy junk and processed food, they smoke and dont take any physial exercise or very little. All of which is self inflicted. So on the logic presented above, most of the population should pay more for their health care or take some personal responsibility. The average weight of a British person is in the obese category, and the british diet is nutrient poor, overly processed and causes so many diseases from diabetes to artherosclerosis and cancer.
Sometimes I wonder if you hate yourselves as a nation, maybe its linked to the mental health epidemic.
What the majority of the public don't know and realise is the vast amount spent on managers who are not frontline staff, have no line of sight with patients, Drs, nurses or therapists and work in premises not connected to hospitals yet are paid vast salaries for 'managing'! When the NHS was set up this level and scope of management was not required and I would say is not required now. I would even go as far as saying that I bet most of the nursing and medical profession don't even know what NHS managers earn or indeed what they do and what value they add to the the NHS in general. Strip out that level of management and put the money into employing nurses and Drs and we would see a hugely improved and more effective health service.
I agree with with a radical reform of managment. But it's also about people taking more responsibility for their own health and educating themselves about how diet and lifestyle is linked to many modern diseases.
Ideallly help should be given to those to quit addictive unhealthy behaviours such as smoking, alcohol consumption, over-eating (especially junk food). As this is really a mental health problem.
That help is near impossible given the misinformation about certain foods across society, including the NHS.
Tax supermarkets and food producers that sell junk, processed unhealthy food and who invest billions in advertising. Or better still ban the sale of unhealthy food altogether. But the reality in this country is that there's money to be made from feeding and manipulating people's addictions.
That should not stop people making positive changes to their diet and lifestyle though. If they're willing. If not maybe a health insurance system is the only way forward. Some will pay higher premiums than others, but it might make them stop and think about what they're putting in their bodies and consider self-care.