Migrant salary rules may cost NHS nurse jobs, union warns

Read the forum code of contact

Member for

16 years 2 months

Posts: 2,248

Migrant salary rules may cost NHS nurse jobs, union warns

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33201189

Original post

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

Following on: Do migrant medical staff represent good value ? Is their technical English good enough for the job ? Do their qualifications match a European standard ? When they reach these shores, does anyone check ?

Do they come from societies where compassion is a vital part of their culture ? Does anyone check ?

The last and most recent example of a certain lack of standard, featured a Filipino nurse with false qualifications allegedly engaged in early termination of vulnerable patients.

These events seem to occur with some regularity and no one bothers to even tut tut any more. Perhaps fewer imports and more home growns is the proper order of things.

Member for

16 years 2 months

Posts: 2,248

I rather think the issue may be the lack of home growns.
Proper order or not (whatever that actually means?), if there's not enough home growns to do the job something has got to give.
One method would be enforced public service, make people be nurses for a period, a little like national service.
Quite how you avoid all the same pitfalls you list above John, in that enforced scenario, is one I struggle to answer however.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

'Proper order of things' equals priorities and prioritising.

In my personal experience the NHS has for many years relied upon imported medical staff. And for those same number of years we've had a flow of problems related to those questions I ask at #2 above. I assume that there is an organisation within the NHS which applies a solution to those questions. But, is there ? If there is, why doesn't it appear to work ?

Lincoln 7 in another thread raises the specter (sic) of political correctness. I believe that that is what is at play here and in similar circumstances. Imported medical staff - especially if they are doctors, are not exhaustively questioned concerning their qualifications because of fears of giving offence connected with their ethnicity - so, patients die because of medical insufficiency and lack of capability in the language of their hosts.

We hear plenty of stories where our own home grown products are involved in medical negligence because they are insufficiently trained or simply lack the intelligence to effectively discharge their duties.

We do not need nurses with degrees. We need nurses who are stuffed full of care and compassion and know how to read a temperature chart and can work out the difference between 10mg and a 100. Someone needs to reiterate the old demarcations between the personnel actually working in the NHS, while recognising that just occasionally there will be a necessary overlap of responsibility.

In such a vital area, nursing recruitment should come from with our own shores. The problem with that is whether or not we have young people sufficiently educated to perform these duties without requiring remedial teaching in basic literacy and numeracy.

Member for

16 years 2 months

Posts: 2,248

I think you are missing the point. There are not enough home grown folk who want to do the job.
The NHS in it's current form requires a certain staffing level, home resources clearly are not adequate to fill that need.
You either accept that those resources required come from elsewhere or you reduce the demand for resources.
The second almost inevitably means reducing the service offered by the NHS. There are those, even on this forum, who will resist that tooth and nail.
Political points about education or political correctness are irrelevant, there are simply not enough people of a home grown nature interested in doing the job.

Profile picture for user 1batfastard

Member for

11 years 2 months

Posts: 3,650

Hi All,
It all comes down to money in the end the pay is nowhere near enough what it should be let alone able to live on comfertably, the NHS decided in it's wisdom it would be cheaper to employ agency nurses in relation to the benefits of:- They will not have to pay the Agency nurses Holiday money/Can get rid of when not enough work/No need to train etc.etc. the down side to all this was the NHS never trained many home grown nurses that did want a career in nursing despite the pitiful wages and working conditions.
The conditions mentioned above is the main reason why we have a shortage in home grown Poor wages and working conditions in particular the Wages, they have been a bone of contention for years. Just look at the pay increase system in place didn't the nurses get 1.5% increase last time and the Mp's 10% ? Where is the fairness in that ? 1% of a few quid is nothing compared to 10% of many thousands plus benefits. Another problem was getting rid of the Matrons they kept the hospitals running just as Sergeants in the forces keep them running....;)

P.S. Eammon Holmes this morning asked the minister who is in charge of this "would they be willing to py the £35'000 pa that would be needed" a number of times and each time she responded with exactly the same answer of "we are prepared to discuss any terms with the nurses" but no Yes/No answer that Eammon was trying to get out of her, a typical government bull and avoidance tactic instead of a straight answer......:mad:

Geoff.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

Au contraire,

It's you that's missing the point. If we lowered the selection bar to where it used to be, from a population of some 60 plus million we would be able to fill staffing levels from home grown sources.

We do not need nurses with degrees other than a degree in compassion. They need to be literate and numerate with a sense of vocation. That is what is needed. With those kind of entry qualifications many more of our 'home growns' would be attracted to the vocation of nursing thus avoiding importation problems.

The only political pointscoring to which you refer will be that mentioned by you. Education, or lack of it is at least one of the underlying problems connected with the present level of home grown nursing recruitment. If young people feel that they are lacking in that department they will not present themselves for interview.

I think that the same problem manifests itself in General Aviation. I believe that GA is contracting perhaps for a variety of reasons one of them being a perception that applicants are insufficiently prepared for the exams that have to be passed.

These are my opinions based on my personal experience. I have not seen nor am I aware of any published evidence.

Member for

15 years 10 months

Posts: 686

The truly surprisingly stupid part of all this is that training funding and places have been cut under this government and in it's previous guise, to the point where 37,000 applicants were refused the chance of training due to lack of funding and capacity, evidently we are now training more nurses, but the numbers will barely keep up with replacing those who retire or leave, certainly will not fill the shortages we have all ready.

Member for

13 years

Posts: 2,841

If like me you watch extremely complex operations on TV most of the highly skilled surgeons seem to be from countries outside the EU OK they are above the new threshold and not included in Daves clearout. For nurses at risk of deportation(for that is what it is) I would give them an exam tough enough to be worth keeping and if they pass they can stay.

All NHS Nurses deserve more pay. A quote from one I know. "Its not the blood that gets to you its the sh*t and vomit!"

Member for

14 years

Posts: 4,996

It wont happen.

Member for

11 years 5 months

Posts: 11,141

"And British Medical Association Dr Mark Porter, speaking at the doctor's conference which is also taking place this week, also came to the defence of people from abroad who are working in the NHS.
"What did we hear in the election campaign from politicians of several parties?
"We were told immigrants are filling up our GP surgeries and our hospitals.
"Well they are. They're called doctors. And nurses. And porters and cleaners and clinical scientists. And without them, the NHS would be on its knees."

Member for

16 years 7 months

Posts: 564

Amazing!Well three years ago I had several procedures done in Australian hospitals and the last one in Brisbane and in the theatre(seven people!) I almost thought I was in Delhi,they were all Asians!Funny thing was I had to have a stent only three weeks later, home here in Thailand and there was only one surgeon doing the procedure and he was Thai!!

Member for

13 years

Posts: 520

Au contraire,

We do not need nurses with degrees other than a degree in compassion. They need to be literate and numerate with a sense of vocation. That is what is needed. With those kind of entry qualifications many more of our 'home growns' would be attracted to the vocation of nursing thus avoiding importation problems.

.

Have you seen how technical a nurse's job is now? They can be specialists in certain conditions or diseases, prescribe some drugs, sit on Clinical Commissioning Groups specialist teams at the same level as consultants, they most definitely do need training to degree level. The old style nurses roles tend now to be filled by Health Care Assistants or similar.

Member for

11 years 5 months

Posts: 11,141

Indeed. A highly specialised male nurse leads the clinical team under the consultant with whom I am registered.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

Yes, I agree with both 13 & 14.

That doesn't make it right. Who empties the bed pans ?

We're importing staff from the Third World. For them to succeed here, the educational standard there, has to be better than here, otherwise there is little point to the exercise.

Who is prepared in our heavily accented PC culture, to stick their neck out and question the veracity of Third World qualifications and the ethnic incomers ability to speak understandable technical English ?

On a slightly different tack but, the same theme, the Royal College of Nursing, just to-day, have issued a condemnation and called for the removal of hidden CCTV camersa installed in care homes for the elderly. There, in the first place, because of well documented concerns over the instances of appalling treatment meted out to the helpless and vulnerable elderly.

I know that the perpetrators weren't all ethnics, many were of the home grown variety. Cruelty can arise from anywhere. The RCN should understand and I believe that they are too intelligent not to, that CCTV has to be used in care homes as well as on the streets of Britain, because of the extent of criminality which exists in many forms.

Member for

11 years 5 months

Posts: 11,141

I sadly and reluctantly agree with your last paragraph.

Member for

12 years 11 months

Posts: 6,535

I accept that the range of medical operations were much more restricted in the period to which I refer. However, we did have specialist theater teams whose job was to assist the surgical team in the preparation, commission and post operative care. They did not have medical degrees - it wasn't thought necessary.

They did tho', have a very good level of un-politicised State education with a sprinkling from private sources. I do not recall one single claim of medical negligence, avoidable mistakes or, misunderstandings related to measurements etc. and typical of the frequent media recorded reports.

Member for

9 years 6 months

Posts: 1,613

I almost thought I was in Delhi,they were all Asians!!

I would have asked for my money back.