It really will be interesting how things work on the acute side. I sense there is a lot of making things up as we go. The wife just had a text from a former matron on the acute side asking if she's able to come and help. She's a lovely boss apparently, but in normal times, there are various exams a nurse has to do (and redo every few years) in order to work in that kind of environment. Relatively routine tasks like intubating a patient or fitting a canola. She hasn't done these things for about six years, and has none of the exams that she would ordinarily need.
It seems likely that the exam requirement might be waived, but the reality is they're there for a reason to ensure skills are up to date, and hers aren't, so either she'd be the equivalent of a glorified health care assistant, or she'd be doing things that she doesn't really feel safe doing, least of all in a very high pressure environment. You might argue that you cant lose your skills in six years, it'd be like riding a bike etc., but the exams have to be done every two years, which suggests to this layman that they're tricky enough to warrant repeated practice.
It's a case of needs must and all hands to the pump I suppose, but a difficult time for sure. It might pay to remember this though when we're led by the media who just want their usual pound of flesh or getting all agitated about targets. There's a lot going on that they can't be bothered to report on that are quite a bit more important. Hopefully people will remember that and not be silly sods when the weather is nice this weekend.
