Why are we paying £12 BN extra NI a year?

LilyoftheValley

Somehow we have to pay to give housing, fuel, food and medical care to those who have come, uninvited to our shores!

Does that include those who come as ready-trained medics?

(Sigh)

maddyone

LilyoftheValley are you suggesting that doctors should pay for asylum seekers by paying back the cost of their training?

No! She just likes making racist comments.

It's nothing to do with the training of medics.

Doodledog

I'm not sure why nurses should get a bursary to study, unlike students of other subjects, when they can leave the NHS to work in the private sector. I would prefer to see a system whereby all medical staff (doctors, nurses and all other client-facing workers such as OTs, dentists, physiotherapists and so on) were trained free, but had to stay in the NHS on graduation or pay back their training costs - maybe by taxation when they leave, rather than in a lump sum.

That is probably simplistic and would need tweaking, but in principle I think it is right. It costs taxpayers a fortune to train medical staff who then leave to work in the private sector or abroad.

That’s such a good idea. Teachers in Turkey are trained for free but they have to go to schools via allocation on completion of training. After 3 years they can apply for other teaching posts. I don’t see why this sort of system couldn’t work for the NHS, and teaching for that matter.

Doodledog

What I am suggesting is that doctors and other NHS professionals should get their training free, which would encourage able students from all backgrounds to join, and would swell the numbers of staff in the NHS, which is something that everyone seems to agree needs to happen as a matter of urgency. By 'free' I mean just that - not just the majority of the fees that sit above their £9k pa contribution.

There's a false argument here. Yes, medical training is expensive. However, doctors are amongst the few who do actually pay back their fees and loans. Even if they go abroad, the Students Loans Company will chase them - and they do. My daughter left the UK for six months after graduating and they wanted me, as her sponsor, to pay the loan back.

I do wish people wouldn't go on about the expense of degrees. The majority of graduates will never pay back the money they've borrowed. No young person from a poor background should ever be put off training as a doctor. There are certainly other factors involved and I know some medical schools are concerned about the narrow backgrounds from which they recruit, so maybe the message should get out there how student loans actually work. However, I don't think this is the place to discuss the value of higher education.

The system you suggest is already in operation. Doctors work for at least two years in clinical practice whilst still a student. They work years five and six of their training in a variety of hospitals and on a variety of rotations. They are working and they are learning as well. They do work independently during that time doing simple medical jobs, and they work alongside other doctors. They are not paid for this work. They then go on to do two Foundation years in a different hospital and they are paid for this work as they are qualified medics. So how many more years do you want to tie them into ayse.

Good post growstuff.

foxie48

Doodledog med students are taught by a variety of different lecturers whilst in lecture rooms, some are doctors teaching part time, some are not doctors, however, clinical practice is taught in placements with students learning alongside practising doctors doing their every day jobs. You seem very focused on the money aspect but from the research that I have read it is burnout rather than salary that leads most doctors to leave the NHS. I was so proud when my daughter became a doctor but sometimes I wish she'd taken a different direction as she has the skills, drive and intelligence to succeed in so many careers where she would have a better work/life balance. She certainly didn't enter medicine for the money!

I think any advanced nation needs to look at people such as medics and teachers as a resource, in whom investment should be made, including making sure they don't "burn out".

ayse

Doodledog

I'm not sure why nurses should get a bursary to study, unlike students of other subjects, when they can leave the NHS to work in the private sector. I would prefer to see a system whereby all medical staff (doctors, nurses and all other client-facing workers such as OTs, dentists, physiotherapists and so on) were trained free, but had to stay in the NHS on graduation or pay back their training costs - maybe by taxation when they leave, rather than in a lump sum.

That is probably simplistic and would need tweaking, but in principle I think it is right. It costs taxpayers a fortune to train medical staff who then leave to work in the private sector or abroad.

That’s such a good idea. Teachers in Turkey are trained for free but they have to go to schools via allocation on completion of training. After 3 years they can apply for other teaching posts. I don’t see why this sort of system couldn’t work for the NHS, and teaching for that matter.

But every doctor after graduation has to do two years foundation training before they can go on to further train in a their chosen specialism, which means they are working and contributing to the NHS. fwiw they don't choose where they go either, it's done on a competitive basis matched against preferences which means in effect, those who come in the bottom half of the lists will end up in the least popular deaneries (and generally there's a reason they are unpopular) Junior doctors put a lot of effort into adding points to their portfolio to increase the chance that they obtain a training place in a deanery they want to work in, this is done in their own time. There are just so many misconceptions about what it's like to train as a doctor and unlike most professions/careers they can't just apply for another job in a different hospital whilst they are training, if you don't like where you are working, you just have to lump it unless of course you leave training and take contracts or locum.

I thought that the new increased NI contribution was specifically to finance the needs of the growing, elderly, disabled and otherwise vulnerable population both now and in the future and provide improved care standards, whether at home or in a care/nursing home.

Granmarderby10

I thought that the new increased NI contribution was specifically to finance the needs of the growing, elderly, disabled and otherwise vulnerable population both now and in the future and provide improved care standards, whether at home or in a care/nursing home.

Errrmmm ... that was the initial promise, but sadly it wasn't true.

Whitewavemark2

Brexit caused staffing levels to drop even further. We were already something like 90+k short before Brexit.

The Tories took away the nursing bursary which caused further shortages.

The bursaries were removed because they were being used as a cheap way of getting a degree by people who had no intention of becoming nurses, rather than as a way of following a vocation.

GrannyRose15

Whitewavemark2

Brexit caused staffing levels to drop even further. We were already something like 90+k short before Brexit.

The Tories took away the nursing bursary which caused further shortages.

The bursaries were removed because they were being used as a cheap way of getting a degree by people who had no intention of becoming nurses, rather than as a way of following a vocation.

What did these trained nurses become?

The bursaries are back now , they were reintroduced last year.The standard rate is £5000 a year with extra if you specialise in mental health and a few other specialist areas

What did these trained nurses become?

What transferable skills do you think trained nurses have?

GrannyRose15

What did these trained nurses become?

What transferable skills do you think trained nurses have?

Do you have figures for the number of nurses who trained with a bursary and who didn't take up nursing jobs?

There's bound to be a drop out rate for trainees in any profession; I just wonder what the 'norm' is and if nursing dropouts exceeded it.

As we were discussing yesterday, I think quite a few qualified nurses go abroad. Not sure if that’s happening during Covid times though. When I was in hospital last year with Covid there were lots of lovely nurses from abroad working on the wards. One had only just arrived about a month before the pandemic. She came from Africa but I can’t remember which country. She was a lovely nurse and very beautiful, and only 23 years old, I think she told me. I remember saying that I thought her mother must be very worried about her with her working on a Covid ward, this was before we had vaccinations of course.
Many of our nurses go abroad to work and others come here to work.

I was surprised by the claim that people were doing nursing degrees just to get a degree on the cheap, so I followed it up.

It would appear that about a quarter of all people who start nursing degrees don't finish them. That's a far higher drop-out rate than for other degrees.

It hasn't gone unnoticed and a number of organisations are concerned. There seem to be various explanations, including the pressure of the course itself, people who decide it's not for them and financial pressures. Apparently, a higher than average number of nursing students have family commitments (because they're mature students) and find it difficult to juggle everything.

There was no improvement when bursaries were stopped and fees introduced, so it's unlikely that people were opting for nursing degrees because they wanted a cheap degree! The reverse is more likely to be true because students might have given up a well-paid job to achieve their vocation, but find it impossible to cope financially.

GrannyRose15

What did these trained nurses become?

What transferable skills do you think trained nurses have?

Most graduates have transferable skills. I would imagine that any graduate with a vocational degree has fewer genuinely transferable skills than somebody opting for a more general degree.

GrannyRose15 people with Nursing degrees are highly sought after by other employers, not just by the NHS.
Teaching and lecturing, sales of drugs and medical equipment, alternative health professions, general management roles, IT development etc. are all on the lookout for nurses, as well as the thousands who work outside the NHS in nursing roles, or who do Agency work. Being a ward based nurse in a hospital is a grind, and there are now so many other avenues open to them that nurses literally have the choice of working anywhere these days. The world is also their oyster, nursing is a ‘wanted’ profession, so it’s very easy for nurses to emigrate temporarily or permanently and work elsewhere in the world.

That answered my question Casdon. I guess nursing degrees are more valuable than I thought.

Incidentally, it's not just graduate nurses who have gone on to other careers. One of my sisters originally trained as a nurse and went on to management and lecturing roles. I don't think she had planned her future, when she first started training at 18.