Do you feel comfortable poaching health staff from the Philippines

SueDonim

140 hours a week? 20 hours a day? Surely not?

That was the norm in the early 70s for Junior docs, yes. On call, at the hospital - with some time spent trying to have food and a drink, and the occasional nap, if they were lucky.

I know several NHS trained doctors who have packed up and moved abroad. Canada, France, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries. As someone said earlier, it’s a two way street.

I think you don’t understand Lincslass. Obviously students can get loans if they are offered a place at medical school, that is not the problem. The problem is the shortage of doctors, coupled with the rationing of medical school places. The BMA estimates a shortage of around 50,000 doctors in the UK. The 5,000 extra GPs promised by the government have never materialised. But still, despite a small increase in medical school places over the last few years, we have too few doctors in the UK because we fail to train the required numbers of medics. We import some which helps to fill some gaps, but it is not enough.
It costs approximately £250,000 to train a doctor, this on top of the £9000 that the student pays. The country doesn’t want to fund more training for doctors, that is why we get them from abroad. That way the country doesn’t need to pay for their training. It’s a simple enough concept, but you appear to be unable to understand it.

Kali2

SueDonim

140 hours a week? 20 hours a day? Surely not?

That was the norm in the early 70s for Junior docs, yes. On call, at the hospital - with some time spent trying to have food and a drink, and the occasional nap, if they were lucky.

Yeh. That’s about as accurate as the 1 year residency that Kali thought they did as a qualification.

The £9000 tuition fees aren’t the end of the matter either. There’s equipment, lodgings etc.

Mollygo you are correct. Our daughter trained in London and she cost us approximately £1000 a year. The university fees were only £1000 a year at that point too. Her rent, tube fares, food, books, etc cost a lot of money. Luckily I was working and so we could afford it. Without two working parents it would have been unaffordable.

Four hours a day to commute, shop, eat, bathe and sleep? Surely that’s not physically possible for anyone.

On call isn’t the same as working. My Dh was the engineer for a large hospital. He was on call alternate weeks so you could say he was working for 168 hours a week. He wasn’t actually working for that number of hours, but he was available.

Peasblossom

Kali2

SueDonim

140 hours a week? 20 hours a day? Surely not?

That was the norm in the early 70s for Junior docs, yes. On call, at the hospital - with some time spent trying to have food and a drink, and the occasional nap, if they were lucky.

Yeh. That’s about as accurate as the 1 year residency that Kali thought they did as a qualification.

Yes, in those days, it was a 1 year registration. Hours were not much lower for SHO rotation for the next 3 years, depending on speciality.

You are right Kali2, I remember those days, but the hours were inclusive of on call, so not all on the floor time. It was not unusual for a house officer to be on for a whole weekend including on call every night, so from 5pm Friday to 9am Monday.

Yes but then with days off. Not 140 hours a week.

maddyone

I think you don’t understand Lincslass. Obviously students can get loans if they are offered a place at medical school, that is not the problem. The problem is the shortage of doctors, coupled with the rationing of medical school places. The BMA estimates a shortage of around 50,000 doctors in the UK. The 5,000 extra GPs promised by the government have never materialised. But still, despite a small increase in medical school places over the last few years, we have too few doctors in the UK because we fail to train the required numbers of medics. We import some which helps to fill some gaps, but it is not enough.
It costs approximately £250,000 to train a doctor, this on top of the £9000 that the student pays. The country doesn’t want to fund more training for doctors, that is why we get them from abroad. That way the country doesn’t need to pay for their training. It’s a simple enough concept, but you appear to be unable to understand it.

Thanks for calling me stupid. Lovely place Gransnet.

Not to worry Lincslass. There is always someone who knows everything about everything on GN, whatever the subject.

Casdon

You are right Kali2, I remember those days, but the hours were inclusive of on call, so not all on the floor time. It was not unusual for a house officer to be on for a whole weekend including on call every night, so from 5pm Friday to 9am Monday.

It’s possible that those hours could be introduced, with plans being made for so-called ghost shifts. Staff will not be at work but they must be available for work at all times. The BMA is not happy.

I can remember when my friend's DD was training and they protested to their consultant about the hours they had to be on call - his answer was "We had to go through it so why shouldn't you?"
I don't think working to the point of exhaustion is in anyone's interests. My niece is on call now and sometimes gets time to sleep but not always but I think the hours are better now.

Casdon

You are right Kali2, I remember those days, but the hours were inclusive of on call, so not all on the floor time. It was not unusual for a house officer to be on for a whole weekend including on call every night, so from 5pm Friday to 9am Monday.

Depends what rotation you were on. If doing Obstetrics, Casualty or Cardiology - you were lucky to get a meal without being interrupted, and more than a couple of hours sleep. I lived with him at the hospital, it was a nightmare.

The point however, in the context of this thread- is that if currently maximum hours is approx half that - you need double the number of junior doctors, and quite likely too, the experience and traning acquired is much less.

It’s true we need more doctors trained here, but a report I just read talks about declining numbers of applicants for the courses that are available. Reading comments from Kali2 and others, could well explain why.

maddyone

Well said Caleo. It simply doesn’t sit right with me to take qualified staff from other countries simply because we don’t want to pay to train our own. And yes, all countries have extremely well polished recruitment drives to get qualified staff from other countries. They don’t want unqualified staff, they want to poach qualified staff in order to avoid the cost of training their own! It may be an unpalatable fact to some people, but whichever way you put it, that is what is going on.

Another good reason for leaving the EU...so many were able to come here and work in the NHS regardless ( for quite a long time) of how poor their understanding of English was.
Medical staff from the Philippines, India, the West Indies, NZ
OZ have no problems with language.
We do need to train our own UK doctors and nurses but can choose (where any needed staff )come from now.
It was all too easy not to bother with training our own people when we were in the EU.

I wonder how many EU staff working in the NHS had “ poor English”? Any I have had contact with have had excellent English, anyway we always recruited from Asia, Africa, NZ, EU membership didn’t stop that.

vegansrock We always recruited from Asia, Africa, NZ . . .
Evidently we didn’t recruit, we poached.

I know what you mean, OP, but presumably it’s always happened - have qualification, will travel. Especially if the pay elsewhere is that much better.,

A doctor (A&E) niece of dh and her surgeon husband recently did a long stint in Australia. His first operation was an amputation after a shark attack!!

My dd2 was born in Abu Dhabi, where the matron of the maternity hospital was a Brit, and one of the nurses who attended me had only just arrived from NZ. The obstetrician I saw during pregnancy in Abu Dhabi was Indian. The GP and dentist we saw regularly when living in Oman were Brits.

vegansrock

I wonder how many EU staff working in the NHS had “ poor English”? Any I have had contact with have had excellent English, anyway we always recruited from Asia, Africa, NZ, EU membership didn’t stop that.

Yes, actually it did to an extant.There were so many nurses coming from EU countries that it made it so much harder for medical staff from India, OZ etc to come here to work as less were needed.
When my DH was in hospital three years ago there were two EU nurses who were very pleasant but their English was very poor indeed which led to several misunderstandings.

Well it’s all anecdote isn’t it lemongrove - I don’t think the NHS was ever fully staffed, so having EU nurses or doctors didn’t preclude anyone from the Caribbean, Africa , India or just about any country in the globe from working in it- not all of them having great English either.

^Medical staff from the Philippines, India, the West Indies, NZ
OZ have no problems with language.^
I think I've mentioned before on GN, lemongrove (and it's getting boring now ) but my Australian niece had to take an English exam at her own expense before she could be employed by the NHS.

Strewth! ?