Current Affairs Rail strikes

[Bruce Wayne]

Not the rail workers but a similar mess.

Stolen from another Everton forum. The situation for these people is desperate.




There are some frankly bizarre views on the nurses strike in threads on here and elsewhere.

Some of you know I am a Governor at a major foundation Trust in London and provide consulting services in Finance/data to others. I serve on the Committee at one Trust that oversees safety including safe staffing levels.

We have a 14.2% frontline nurse vacancy rate and it would be nearer 20% without a major overseas recruiting drive this year.

Our nurses routinely work five 12 hour shifts per week (rather than our nominal standard 4) that often over-run. They routinely have holidays cancelled at no notice and urgent requests to work days off to maintain staffing. Their average pay across all grade is more than 10% lower in real terms than 2010 with some 20% down and working conditions are worse with bullying/harassment (including by patients and public), stress and mental health issues at record levels.

Based on our staff surveys:

6 in 10 report using foodbanks, our/other charitable services or family to help feed themselves/family.

2 in 10 nurses under 35 have or plan to move back in with their parents as they cannot afford rent or bills including some with family.

Our attrition rate, which has traditionally been below national average, has almost doubled in a year and now exceeds our hiring rate meaning all of the above can only get worse.

The quality of life for nurses in and out of work has deteriorated massively since 2010.

Our nurses are not on strike as the majority at our Trust was not big enough for the RCN to push ahead but that does not mean they are content or opposed to striking, in fact we worry it indicates they have lost hope and that our attrition rate will worsen still further.

The NHS is on its knees. The Trusts I know in London are barely hanging on and providing bare minimum services. Buildings are run down. Equipment is old. Outsourced maintenance and cleaning are problematic. Ambulance services are not functional even without a strike. The despair amongst staff and executives is widespread and deep.

The problem really is NOT the strikers.

Given their senior role in the NHS, I wonder why they aren't advocating for staff patterns that aren't so atrocious? It's an easy way out for them to blame everything on not having enough money to pay people and that being the only reason why the attrition rate among nurses is so high as this absolves them of any blame whatsoever. The sad reality is that the NHS is a dreadful employer.

 

[Chewbacca]

The English are too nice really. The working class has all the muscle, too bad there's so much individualism and competition between unions.
I can't imagine the state of the London city centre if this was France.

This was, of course, the entire thrust of Thatcherism. No such thing as society, everybody out for themselves.

 

[woomy]

Given their senior role in the NHS, I wonder why they aren't advocating for staff patterns that aren't so atrocious? It's an easy way out for them to blame everything on not having enough money to pay people and that being the only reason why the attrition rate among nurses is so high as this absolves them of any blame whatsoever. The sad reality is that the NHS is a dreadful employer.

It really is a poor employer. Very much, it has always been this way, so we will stick with it.
My area is mental health. Imagine dealing with a ward of 15+ mentally ill young men on an accute is tough enough. Now imagine doing it for 12 straight hours with minimal staffing, and no breaks.
You just can't offer a consistent level of care.
As much as they pretend otherwise. When push comes to shove. The management don't really care about staffs mental and physical wellbeing.
You have staff assualted, verbally and racially abused and unless you are a higher banding, nobody cares.
It's a business plain and simple. If you can cut costs, costs will be cut.
The whole thing needs reform. Starting with the getting rid of 12+ hour shifts.

I wouldn't come now.
I do question students, why do you want this? Then I remember they are kids and don't have a clue.

 

[degsy]

It would be absolutely beautiful so long as it was done to genuinely grind the capital to a halt.

Sadly, disaffected youth would use at as a justification to loot and smash the crap out of everything.

Sad but probably true

 

[Bruce Wayne]

This was, of course, the entire thrust of Thatcherism. No such thing as society, everybody out for themselves.

It's crazy how that quote has been misunderstood over the years. If you actually read the full thing she's not advocating "everybody out for themselves" at all, but rather the opposite, that we should strive to help each other out rather than always looking to the state to do it. Taking responsibility for our own wellbeing and of those around rather than absolving ourselves of responsibility.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It really is a poor employer. Very much, it has always been this way, so we will stick with it.
My area is mental health. Imagine dealing with a ward of 15+ mentally ill young men on an accute is tough enough. Now imagine doing it for 12 straight hours with minimal staffing, and no breaks.
You just can't offer a consistent level of care.
As much as they pretend otherwise. When push comes to shove. The management don't really care about staffs mental and physical wellbeing.
You have staff assualted, verbally and racially abused and unless you are a higher banding, nobody cares.
It's a business plain and simple. If you can cut costs, costs will be cut.
The whole thing needs reform. Starting with the getting rid of 12+ hour shifts.

I wouldn't come now.
I do question students, why do you want this? Then I remember they are kids and don't have a clue.

It seems common that staff will be worked to the bone and then giving access to Headspace to deal with the stress. There's no thought given to what is causing the stress to begin with. Incidentally, from what I can tell from the other half, the union don't care about these things either as apart from the quarterly magazine, she doesn't ever hear a dicky bird from them all year.

 

[mahermi1]

There should be a national strike. Then we can find out just who actually contributes to the country’s wellbeing and who is having a well paid ride







Unbelievable you value no one but yourself you're political party who you have voted for religiously has been the main cause of this over the last 12 years, with their austerity policies and the tax cuts for the rich like yourself hope you're proud.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Given their senior role in the NHS, I wonder why they aren't advocating for staff patterns that aren't so atrocious? It's an easy way out for them to blame everything on not having enough money to pay people and that being the only reason why the attrition rate among nurses is so high as this absolves them of any blame whatsoever. The sad reality is that the NHS is a dreadful employer.

My old manager was a senior manager of a Health Trust. Her take was that it became very difficult to productively discuss such problems with the Department of Social Care and ministers. Bullying tactics were used to push trusts in the 'right' direction regardless of the reality.

But agreed, the demands made on staff are ridiculous.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

That's precisely what I would tell someone looking at a career in the NHS right now as it's a basket case and won't ever change. Even if budgets rise to ensure no reduction in service as a result of any pay offers, the CCG will still demand more than is possible to give so stress and burnout levels won't drop. They do that all in the shadow of anonymity because the public hasn't a scooby who they are or what they do, so just blame the government instead. That's all too evident during the strikes, as not one mention has been made of the targets set by the CCGs and how they put incredible pressure on staff.

Do the CCGs make arbitrary standards? Or do they flow from Government?

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

There should be a national strike. Then we can find out just who actually contributes to the country’s wellbeing and who is having a well paid ride….

I'm guessing it's not Leicestershire's answer to Al Murray is it?

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Worth pointing out that CCGs shouldn't actually exist any longer as a statutory body. They've been replaced by ICBs, ICS and ICPs.

The ICB will now be the ones commissioning the service, but they've had very little support or guidance to do what they need to do - so currently operate like CCGs despite having responsibility for joining up H&SC across regional footprints.

As I said, it's a mess. It has been since the introduction of the HSC Act and the NHS internal market place. It's why you have a race to extract more from less, competition for funding vs standards, uncertainty and lack of accountability around commissioned services where there is no direct line of sight from commissioner to patient provider (not always the commissioned provider).

Mix that into nationally mandated targets and you've got a system that doesn't really work, trying to look after patients with a workforce exposed to all the inadequacy of that system.

And a number of people concerned that they will be next on the chopping block as national budgets are revised.

I see comparison between the nursing strike and rail strikes on that front.

Trace it back to the Lawnsley reforms where he decided to 'restructure' to reduce complexity and beauracracy. Before having to create a load of new bodies to do the stuff he'd abolished.

Not saying it was brilliant before, but it seems every health secretary dreams up a 'better' structure and lo! Mess time.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

My old manager was a senior manager of a Health Trust. Her take was that it became very difficult to productively discuss such problems with the Department of Social Care and ministers. Bullying tactics were used to push trusts in the 'right' direction regardless of the reality.

But agreed, the demands made on staff are ridiculous.

Oh I don't doubt that, and as I mentioned before, the commissioners tend to impose pretty stringent targets, which I'm sure will increase in line with all of the new nurses that will inevitably be attracted by whatever pay deal is eventually negotiated. Heck, the country as a whole has a pretty much "use and abuse" relationship with the NHS and its staff.

 

[FrenchDarrenBent]

It's crazy how that quote has been misunderstood over the years. If you actually read the full thing she's not advocating "everybody out for themselves" at all, but rather the opposite, that we should strive to help each other out rather than always looking to the state to do it. Taking responsibility for our own wellbeing and of those around rather than absolving ourselves of responsibility.

We are the state. The state helping me or a farmer, that's helping eachother out.

Beautiful if you think about it.

 

[ForeverBlue92]

Concerns over these pay rises are that inflation/interest rates will never go back down as these companies/banks know people have more dough in their pocket to spend.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Do the CCGs make arbitrary standards? Or do they flow from Government?

I suspect it's a bit of everything. The thing is, demographically, we need to get better at healthcare because the population is ageing and health spending is taking up an ever greater share of the budget. The thing is, the current approach seems to be more like that of an Amazon warehouse, with attempts to pluck every last bit out of the workforce while also pretending you care about them. I really don't think that will work and we need a complete rethink of a system that was largely designed a couple of generations ago when circumstances were very different. You can't make such fundamental changes though because you're on a constant treadmill trying to keep up with what's expected of you here and now. So we bumble from crisis to crisis.