NHS - Unsustainable pressure

As an ex NHS employee who retired last year, I was contacted last week to see if I would consider returning to work to support through this winter. Desperate times,

There was an article by a consultant in the Telegraph talking about the number of Covid-19 patients in Intensive Care Units, who might not have needed hospitalisation if they had been vaccinated.

The Unions in the NHS predicted this about 15 yrs ago. The Government at the time was told, its due to -
Age of the numerous senior experience NHS staff, reaching 55 all professions (nurses can/could take their pension at 55 )
Changes in all the pension terms and conditions.
Non funding of training programmes...etc
I clearly remember receiving this informational document from Unite.
I know lots of Health care professionals who took their pension under the old T&C's. I did and like many have gone back as Bank staff.
This includes numerous GP's who have done the same.
How many current NHS senior /experienced staff are older than 55, they will be off in the next 10 years?

Corbyn warned that this was the plan. He was mocked and accused of scaremongering by the popular press and those that believe them, including many on GN.

WW - it's not bit by bit though, looking like a car crash I slow motion.

It isn’t at all baffling. The Tories are running down the NHS bit by bit.

It's not too bad in London right now - but it's an ever changing scene. Those who think it's all over can't possibly have any medical staff in their family:

www.centreforcities.org/data/coronavirus-cases-uk-cities-large-towns/

Mine a physiotherapist has been off suffering PTS for the last 2+ months. She worked on the front line, without protection, working extra hours and weekends to find one day she couldn’t leave the house. She is still having flashbacks. Several others in the same northern hospital are in the same situation or have left.
Please wear your masks.

It’s why my daughter and her husband, both doctors, jumped ship and went to New Zealand.

It has been a real strain on them for the last 18 months, however I did read that numbers are increasing ( for nurses)
Due to the admiration given to them during Covid.It’s not over yet and understandable that at times they feel burned out.
The nurse in our own family has been pleased to pick up overtime though ( saving for something) and there will be others doing the same.

I had this worry last year, that so many of them will be unable to keep going under such continued stress and will leave the NHS. Then we will be in an even worse situation. New people will be unwilling to enter the NHS when they know how hard it is.

I agree Chestnut my daughter is a mental health nurse and is stressed to the max due to all the new referrals and staff shortages. No one to take care of her mental health. It's such a shame that so many highly trained staff are thinking of leaving the profession.

The NHS is at breaking point and so are the staff. There are so many people off work that nurses and other healthcare professionals like my daughter are suffering from extreme stress causing physical and mental illness. The whole system needs changing but it's hardly possible in the middle of a pandemic. Lives will be lost and patients will suffer until things change.

I'm fairly certain that DD's friend who has been working as a doctor in A&E and ICU for the last 18 months, and my GP, who retired for a couple of weeks and then returned to work because they were so short of doctors, would agree with every word of this and would probably add a few words of their own.