Ridiculous NHS advert for Director for Lived Experience

Lack of doctors and nurses must be due to poor workforce planning. It must have been possible to look at the ageing nursing population and predict the need for more in a few years time. Yet nursing training places were cut and access to university places restricted in Scotland.

Would your DiL feel happier if the job title were "Director for Disabled, Mentally Illness and Disadvantaged"? That's what it essentially is.

The idea is to make sure that certain people have equal experience of healthcare services.

As a small example ...

I'm sure most people have heard about bed blocking and know that most acute hospitals try to discharge as soon as possible. Somebody at Board level needs to provide a voice for people who can't be discharged quickly, maybe because they're not capable of self-care, don't have friends/family or are homeless. People with mental or physical disabilities also need special care when they're in hospital. Clinicians in other specialisms can't be expected to understand all the needs. The idea is to have somebody who can speak up for such people, when the accountants and clinicians formulate plans.

The aim is to have healthcare which serves patients, including minorities, rather than top-down decision makers.

Aveline

Lack of doctors and nurses must be due to poor workforce planning. It must have been possible to look at the ageing nursing population and predict the need for more in a few years time. Yet nursing training places were cut and access to university places restricted in Scotland.

Not just Scotland! The government is responsible for the funding of training places.

Snap Wyllow.

www.gov.scot/news/nursing-and-midwifery-student-intake/

[sigh]

Looks like people jump to conclusions from job titles they don't understand. This job has considerable mental health responsibility in part of the NHS which is underfunded. A challenging job.

What conclusions have people jumped to?

Wyllo3
The buck has never stopped with anyone working for the NHS. Why will it be any different with this post.
The only time the buck is going to stop with anyone is when our NHS is run by American insurance companies.
Those people don’t mess around with employees who don’t produce.

MerylStreep

Wyllo3
The buck has never stopped with anyone working for the NHS. Why will it be any different with this post.
The only time the buck is going to stop with anyone is when our NHS is run by American insurance companies.
Those people don’t mess around with employees who don’t produce.

Is this a parody?

Doodledog

What conclusions have people jumped to?

these ridiculous “non-jobs”
"woke" and "politically correct" type of thing happening here
you wouldn't believe some of the job titles they come up with
They can find money for roles like this

Wyllow3

Casdon

The job description is here.
What is good is that they are looking for somebody who has personal experience of using the system.
www.jobs.nhs.uk/xi/search_vacancy/?action=search;master_id=121040

That will indeed call for a special person - if you have been vulnerable service user, its a big ask.

NanaBabs I take your point but there is a heck of a lot of overall responsibility there. Its not unlike working out how to discharge people from bed-blocking in the usual NHS to have safe experiences in the community but with MH conditions - a major current issue.

Paying that doesn't mean to say that your dear DiL shouldn't be paid decently either.

According to the government's stats, 21% of working age people have some sort of disability. Some of the disabilities are quite minor and some much more severe.

Just over half of disabled people work. There's no reason why somebody with many disabilities wouldn't be able to do this job. I wonder how many disabled people currently have decision-making roles in the NHS (or any other organisation for that matter).

Sounds like a job title for the Sussex’s so maybe they could job share.If they can work from home.

Oreo

Sounds like a job title for the Sussex’s so maybe they could job share.If they can work from home.

Why?

I really don't see the connection.

Growstuff
Which part of my post do you think is a parody?
Name me one head of a NHS trust who has been held responsible for catastrophes under their watch.
I believe it’s the Tories intention to break the NHS and that will be replaced by what I stated.

growstuff

Doodledog

What conclusions have people jumped to?

these ridiculous “non-jobs”
"woke" and "politically correct" type of thing happening here
you wouldn't believe some of the job titles they come up with
They can find money for roles like this

They are opinions, though, which are still allowed, aren't they? In my opinion the job title is daft, and was guaranteed to make people ask questions.

The thread title is about ridiculous advert, and whether or not the actual role is ridiculous, the jargon can certainly be seen as such.

Seems to me the title may be new but its accurate for the job. "Manager of x and y resources" doesn't describe what happening here - making sure service users have a voice (ie they have lived the experiences) and that resources allocated appropriately. I don't think it falls into the "ridiculous" category just because it's new.

Growstuff agree "There's no reason why somebody with many disabilities wouldn't be able to do this job." It's just that MH service users have had an illness of the mind and its a tough role.

I agree, but there are many thousands of people with physical disabilities who could do the job (if they had the management experience). There are degrees of mental illness too. Each case would need to be considered on its merits.

Doodledog

growstuff

Doodledog

What conclusions have people jumped to?

these ridiculous “non-jobs”
"woke" and "politically correct" type of thing happening here
you wouldn't believe some of the job titles they come up with
They can find money for roles like this

They are opinions, though, which are still allowed, aren't they? In my opinion the job title is daft, and was guaranteed to make people ask questions.

The thread title is about ridiculous advert, and whether or not the actual role is ridiculous, the jargon can certainly be seen as such.

The OP talked about "non jobs".

I think the job title is a bit "management speak", but it doesn't mean that it's a non job.

My sister, who was a Director of Community Nursing, covered some of this role. Many of her clients had additional needs and should have received more support than they ever did. If they needed acute medical treatment and hospital admission, she had to communicate with the hospital about needs and sometimes had to send them in with an additional member of staff. When they were discharged, additional support had to be arranged.

When my sister's team was disbanded and clients handed over to local authorities and then outsourced to private companies, the additional needs were forgotten. Staff on general wards aren't trained to deal with all additional needs and hospitals don't always have robust policies in place. Sometimes, they don't even realise that patients are having problems. Discharges become a real problem. My sister's role was never replaced, so dealing with disabled and mentally ill people was hit and miss.

It's a good thing that people with additional needs will have a voice at senior level.

Its not a "non-job", why do people who don't understand the terminology used jump to that assumption? Those working within the field of mental health understand what "lived experience" means in the context of that field. Those who don't understand it i.e. those who don't work in mental health feel free to make snide and baseless comments. No-one says nurses shouldn't be paid a whole lot more.

Doodledog

Nobody is saying that they take the jobs of doctors and nurses, but the reason doctors and nurses are difficult to recruit and retain is that their pay is low and their conditions are stressful.

If the salaries for jobs like this were lower (how does the responsibility and conditions of service compare to those of a staff nurse?) then at least some of that could be mitigated.

Nurses are constantly told that 'we can't afford' to pay them well, yet there is money for roles like this to be filled at high salaries. That is what people are objecting to.

Yes I agree.

Nurses are constantly told that 'we can't afford' to pay them well, yet there is money for roles like this to be filled at high salaries. That is what people are objecting to.

So are you saying that no-one should be paid a high salary for a seriously responsible senior management role because the government is determined to see off the unions?

Of course there is money to pay the nurses, they've just been caught up in a battle of wills and macho posturing.

"Lived experience" used to be known as "first hand knowledge".

“First hand knowledge “ is not a better description than “lived experience”, is it? It’s more clumsy and less descriptive, it’s not necessarily a term used by MH professionals. The salary is not too high for someone in such a role in charge of training across a large sector. It’s not a race to the bottom - other health professionals should be paid much more.

MaizieD

^Nurses are constantly told that 'we can't afford' to pay them well, yet there is money for roles like this to be filled at high salaries. That is what people are objecting to.^

So are you saying that no-one should be paid a high salary for a seriously responsible senior management role because the government is determined to see off the unions?

Of course there is money to pay the nurses, they've just been caught up in a battle of wills and macho posturing.

No, I'm not saying anything of the sort.

Why do you think I put 'we can't afford' in quotation marks? And why would I think that anyway? I am perfectly capable of understanding that this is a battle that the government doesn't want to lose in case it sets a precedent, and that they could afford to pay more if they wanted to. None of that contradicts what I said, which is that at a time when people are scared because of cutbacks in front-line services they are objecting to resources going into support roles.

A strategic, decision-making role at board level isn't a "support role".