The Staffing Crisis in the NHS

Nevertheless SueDonim there always used to be enough clinical placements and supervision. With the will, support and enough financial input there could be again. In fact there'll have to be!!

But this isn't a new problem. This government has had 12 years to make plans and start expanding places. I read a report (Kings Fund?), which claimed that there are universities which don't currently run medic courses, which would be keen to set them up, but the government isn't interested. Some of them have good hospitals nearby, which are crying out for trainees.

SueDonim

Casdon

Capping of university places available to train for the professions is a major issue.

It’s not that easy to expand places. You need to provide clinical placements and supervisors for all students and these are not available. Medical students don’t spend all their time in lecture halls, they work on the wards and in clinics, in my DD’s case, from six weeks after starting in first year.

People would soon start complaining if they were treated by doctors who’d never had any hands-on experience.

I know SueDomin. It requires more investment from the government to universities to plan and expand the number of places available over a prolonged period. I wasn’t specifically talking about medical students, but whilst the number of clinical attachments is an issue, if more resources were provided they could be expanded because there would be more teaching capacity available within clinical teams- fundamentally it’s a resourcing problem.

There aren’t enough placements available now and there won’t be in the future until more staff are employed, which doesn’t seem to be happening. Staff aren’t being retained, either. My dd is 2yrs post-qualified and has left the NHS because of the appalling conditions. She’s now working as a locum instead.

I know SueDomin, I’m not disagreeing with you. The problem is that the clinical teams don’t have the number of staff in them to support the training of more juniors. That’s why I said that fundamentally it’s a resourcing problem, they employ less people, work them half to death, don’t give them capacity in their working week to teach, and then wonder why experienced doctors leave the NHS. But it’s not just doctors, the same pattern applies to the other heath professions as well. It’s a vicious circle of neglect.

Then those over-stretched leave because they are worried that they might make a mistake through sheer tiredness and stress, exacerbating the situation.

Yes, absolutely. I was talking to a chap yesterday whose wife is a trauma nurse. They’re expecting a baby but once her Mat Leave is over she’s planning to leave the NHS and return as locum, for more family-friendly hours, better pay and less stress.

It’s all a mess.

When I retired from nursing almost 4 years ago it was getting difficult for universities to place nursing students as many areas would not take them because the pressures on staff meant there was no time for the mentoring they required. I retired in the cohort of nurses that the UK NHS (different systems for the countries in the UK but similar problems) were aware that a large number of nurses were reaching retirement but had not prepared for this. It takes at least 3 years at uni to train a nurse, longer to train a doctor. The roles have changed beyond belief. I did not go to uni - it was a school of nursing. My first placement I had to serve breakfast, learn how to make a bed the hospital way, help to bath patients, maybe watch a senior nurse do a dressing. In your second year of training you were in charge of a whole ward of patients overnight. I digress though - professional bodies have been warning about nurses retiring for many years and no government has paid heed to this.

Monitoring is also a huge issue with medical students and junior doctors, and GP trainees (who have to be vey closely monitored and coached by a trained and selected senior GP for 3 years. GP trainers are just not coming forward as it is too time consuming and energy sapping).