Search the hub
Showing results for tags 'Recruitment'.
-
Content ArticleNHS trusts have often reported emergency department doctors having low levels of satisfaction and high rates of burnout, leading to a high turnover. In 2017, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) and Western Sussex Hospitals merged to form University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. The Trust found that the organisation of shifts at Royal Sussex County Hospital (RSCH) and Princess Royal Hospital (PRH) and lack of flexibility were adding to the strain already felt by doctors working in the high pressure emergency department. To combat the pressure consultants and other doctors were under, the Trust implemented a system to help improve rota design and flexible working. The hope was that the system would help the trust retain and recruit staff, whilst saving locum costs and improving patient care.
- Posted
-
- Safe staffing
- Workforce management
- (and 6 more)
-
News Article
NHS faces ‘alarming’ exodus of doctors and dentists, health chiefs warn
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS faces an alarming mass exodus of doctors and dental professionals, health chiefs have said, as a report reveals 4 in 10 are likely to quit over “intolerable” pressures. Intense workloads, rapidly soaring demand for urgent and emergency healthcare and the record high backlog of operations are causing burnout and exhaustion and straining relationships between medics and patients, according to the report by the Medical Defence Union (MDU), which provides legal support to about 200,000 doctors, dental professionals and other healthcare workers in the UK. In an MDU survey of more than 800 doctors and dental professionals across the UK, conducted within the last month and seen by the Guardian, 40% agreed or strongly agreed they were likely to resign or retire within the next five years as a direct result of “workplace pressures”. Medical leaders called the report “deeply concerning”. There are already 133,000 NHS vacancies in England alone. NHS chiefs said it laid bare the impact of the crisis in the health service on staff, and MPs said it should serve as a “wake-up call” to ministers on the urgent need to take action to persuade thousands of NHS staff heading for the exit door to stay. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 29 January 2023- Posted
-
- Recruitment
- Additional staff required
- (and 6 more)
-
Content ArticleYou can now watch the recording of the Nuffield Trust event: 'Does the rush for new types NHS staff have a dark side?'
- Posted
-
- Workforce management
- Recruitment
- (and 10 more)
-
Content ArticleIn this article, HSJ's Annabelle Collins reflects on the increasing number of NHS staff quitting their jobs and the risk to patient safety of 'corridor care'.
- Posted
-
- Safe staffing
- Recruitment
- (and 7 more)
-
News ArticleNHS trusts in England have increased recruitment from low-income “red list” countries to make up for the post-Brexit loss of EU staff, despite a code of practice to safeguard health services in those developing countries. A report by the Nuffield Trust thinktank also identified shortages in vital specialist areas since Brexit, including dentistry, cardiothoracic surgery and anaesthesiology. It found that Brexit is still causing issues with the supply of medicines in Northern Ireland despite a change in the arrangements put in place by the EU last April. The report says that since 2021, the Northern Ireland protocol obliging EU trade rules to be followed in the region has led to a different set of medicines being available compared with the rest of the UK. Of the 597 products specifically approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency since Brexit, “only eight were also approved for Northern Ireland under the same name and company”. It also found that since 2021, 52 products had been granted marketing authorisation for Northern Ireland but not in Great Britain under the EU approvals system, including a painkiller from the Slovenian company Sandoz Farmacevtska Druzba designed to stop people dying from opiate overdoses. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) described the report as “deeply alarming”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 7 January 2023
- Posted
-
- Recruitment
- Medication
-
(and 2 more)
Tagged with:
-
News Article
Hospitals in England pay £5,200 for one agency doctor's shift
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Hospitals in England have paid out as much as £5,200 for a shift by a doctor through an agency, according to figures obtained by Labour through Freedom of Information requests. That is the latest in an intensifying debate over workforce shortages in the NHS in England. Labour blamed the high agency fees on Conservatives, arguing they had failed to train enough doctors and nurses. A Conservative spokesperson said "record numbers" had been recruited. The most expensive reported shift was £5,234 - paid by a trust in northern England. This covers the agency fee and other employer costs as well as the money going to the doctor. The NHS Confederation said the "staffing crisis" was so "desperate" that NHS trusts were being forced to pay large fees to make sure rotas were "staffed safely". Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: "Trusts are having to breach the caps on how much they pay for agency doctors because of the extremely high levels of demand they are facing for their services. "The staffing crisis is so desperate that they either pay these fees or find that their rotas cannot be staffed safely, leading to reduced services for patients. This is particularly true in parts of the country where the NHS can struggle to recruit new staff." Read full story Source: BBC News, 12 December 2022- Posted
-
- Organisation / service factors
- Doctor
- (and 3 more)
-
Content ArticleThis report from the International Council of Nurses is intended to give an overview of the continuing challenges faced by nurses, highlight the potential medium- to long-term impacts on the nursing workforce, and inform policy responses that need to be taken to retain and strengthen the nursing workforce.
- Posted
-
- Nurse
- Staff factors
- (and 9 more)
-
News Article
Brexit has worsened shortage of NHS doctors, analysis shows
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Brexit has worsened the UK’s acute shortage of doctors in key areas of care and led to more than 4,000 European doctors choosing not to work in the NHS, research reveals. The disclosure comes as growing numbers of medics quit in disillusionment at their relentlessly busy working lives in the increasingly overstretched health service. Official figures show the NHS in England alone has vacancies for 10,582 physicians. Britain has 4,285 fewer European doctors than if the rising numbers who were coming before the Brexit vote in 2016 had been maintained since then, according to analysis by the Nuffield Trust. In 2021, a total of 37,035 medics from the EU and European free trade area (EFTA) were working in the UK. However, there would have been 41,320 – or 4,285 more – if the decision to leave the EU had not triggered a “slowdown” in medical recruitment from the EU and the EFTA quartet of Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Lichtenstein. The dropoff has left four major types of medical specialities that have longstanding doctor shortages – anaesthetics, children, psychiatry, and heart and lung treatment – failing to keep up with a demand for care heightened by Covid and an ageing population. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 27 November 2022- Posted
-
- Leadership
- Policies
- (and 4 more)
-
Content ArticleHow have the numbers of doctors in the NHS who come from the EU and the European Free Trade Association changed since the Brexit referendum in 2016? And do certain specialties face particular problems? Martha McCarey and Mark Dayan take a closer look at what’s happened since the vote.
- Posted
-
- Workforce management
- Recruitment
- (and 5 more)
-
Content ArticleThe workforce crisis engulfing the health and care system is well documented. In the NHS, increases in staff numbers are not keeping pace with demand for staff and services; in 2021/22, for the first time, the number of people working in adult social care in England fell, and there are now 165,000 vacancies. In this long read, Sally Warren, Director of Policy at The King's Fund, looks at a report by Bill Morgan, commissioned by The King's Fund and Engage Britain, to consider why politicians have failed to act, where only they can, to deliver the workforce that the health and care system needs. The article covers the following areas: Transparency in workforce planning assumptions Training and international recruitment Retention: it’s not just about pay More than a numbers game, getting the culture and leadership right Productivity and skill mix Action at all levels Service improvement ambitions matched to the available workforce
- Posted
-
- Workforce management
- Transparency
-
(and 4 more)
Tagged with:
-
Content ArticleThe King’s Fund and Engage Britain commissioned Bill Morgan, a former Conservative special adviser, to explore what can get in the way of ministers taking meaningful, long-term action to address NHS workforce shortages. In this report, he focuses on the role of politicians in workforce planning and delivery. The report sets out the scale of the workforce crisis and the impact that it has. It also considers the political reasons around why it has been so hard to fix and considers three factors that could contribute to tackling the current shortages: Transparency in workforce forecasts The establishment of an independent workforce-planning organisation Accepting the NHS’s historical reliance on recruitment from outside the UK as explicit future policy and planning accordingly
- Posted
-
- Workforce management
- Safe staffing
-
(and 3 more)
Tagged with:
-
News Article
Nurses across UK to strike for first time on 15 and 20 December
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Nurses across the UK will go on strike for the first time over two days in the fortnight before Christmas after ministers rejected their pleas for formal talks over NHS pay. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said its members would stage national strikes – the first in its 106-year history – on 15 and 20 December. Senior sources said the industrial action was expected to last for 12 hours on both days – most likely between 8am and 8pm. The unprecedented national industrial action will seriously disrupt care and is likely to be the first in a series of strikes over the winter and into the spring by other NHS staff, including junior doctors and ambulance workers. On Friday, RCN general secretary, Pat Cullen, said the UK government had chosen strikes over listening to nursing staff, adding: “If you turn your back on nurses, you turn your back on patients.” The RCN said that despite a pay rise of about £1,400 awarded in the summer, experienced nurses were worse off by 20% in real terms due to successive below-inflation awards since 2010. It said the economic argument for paying nursing staff fairly was clear when billions of pounds were being spent on agency staff to plug workforce gaps. It added that in the last year, 25,000 nursing staff around the UK had left the Nursing and Midwifery Council register, with poor pay contributing to staff shortages across the country, which it warned were affecting patient safety. There are 47,000 unfilled NHS registered nurse posts in England alone. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 25 November 2022- Posted
-
- Nurse
- Organisation / service factors
- (and 3 more)
-
News Article
Plea to blur line between doctors and nurses amid NHS staff crisis
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS staffing crisis will be solved only if doctors and nurses get more flexible about their job descriptions and break down barriers between roles, according to Rishi Sunak’s health adviser. Bill Morgan argues that training times for doctors and nurses may have to be reduced, and suggests developing “sub-consultants” and entirely new medical professions, He wants ministers to create an Office for Budget Responsibility-style body to predict future workforce needs. The Treasury has held down the numbers of doctors and nurses Britain trains to prevent “supply-induced demand”, which encourages people to seek appointments that are not needed, Morgan argues. Chronic shortages of qualified staff are the biggest problem facing the health service, which has more than 130,000 vacancies. Morgan acknowledges that this means “some of the government’s key manifesto commitments will not be met”, citing the promise of 6,000 extra GPs. Sunak said this week that the government was “thinking creatively about what new roles and capabilities we need in the healthcare workforce of the future”. He urged the NHS to shed “conventional wisdom”. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 24 November 2022 -
News Article
NHS ‘needs thousands more staff to meet cost of living crisis demands’
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS therapy services won’t be able to manage increased demand driven by the cost of a living crisis as they are already thousands of therapists short, The Independent has been told. NHS counselling services in England are not meeting therapy access targets due to a shortfall of 2,000 workers, according to sources. The findings come as a poll by the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) and YouGov, shared with The Independent, found that almost one in two adults felt the cost of living crisis was affecting their mental health. According to the survey of more than 2,000 adults, 25 to 34 years old were most likely to say the cost of the living crisis was impacting their mental health. Adam Jones, policy and public affairs manager for the UKCP, said “I think what we’re concerned about is the fact that already, there is a record level of demand for mental health services. We also know there are record rates of prescription for antidepressant medication as well. We’re concerned the capacity currently is already falling short. “So with the rising demand going forward, we’re concerned that services are going to be stretched, waiting time is going to go up, average number of therapy sessions received is going to go down He warned that although the NHS is focussed on training new therapists, there was already an existing workforce of psychotherapists and counsellors who don’t work in the NHS. “We’d like to see more targeted recruitment of psychotherapists and counsellors who are already trained, and so that most would only require a short adaptive training to be able to work in an NHS context.” Read full story Source: The Independent, 23 November 2022- Posted
-
- Workforce management
- Mental health
- (and 2 more)
-
News Article
Trust moves away from ‘disturbing’ agency doctor model
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
A major acute trust says it plans to move away from its significant use of agency doctors from overseas, who have been reported to be working on terms and conditions far below their NHS-employed counterparts. East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust has a contract with the NES Healthcare agency to supply 47 “resident medical officers (RMO)” across its three main sites to cover trauma and orthopaedics, medical and surgical rotas. HSJ has been told of concerns that RMO's are reporting substantial overworking, and poor terms and conditions, although some of these claims are disputed by NES. East Kent chief medical officer Rebecca Martin has told HSJ: “The well-being of all our colleagues is one of our top priorities and we are working with the agency about how they cover the rota safely". “We are committed to providing a safe workplace environment, where RMOs feel comfortable communicating their feedback and we review working patterns to ensure adequate rest periods between shifts. We are actively working to use substantive staff to fill vacancies, and have already been able to offer some of those positions to current RMOs.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 November 2022- Posted
-
- Recruitment
- Staff factors
-
(and 3 more)
Tagged with:
-
News Article
Government wants new NHS cyber security chief
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The Government is looking to hire a new cyber security chief for the NHS and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), at a time of heightened risk of cyber attacks against the health service. The DHSC last month issued a job advert for a “national chief information security officer”, who will sit within the digital policy unit of NHS England’s transformation directorate. It comes at a time when the risk of cyber attacks against the NHS is increasing. Earlier this summer, an attack on an NHS electronic patient record supplier impacted several providers, including a dozen mental health trusts, with some trusts still not having recovered their service fully. Meanwhile, in February, NHSE wrote to trusts to tell them to strengthen their cyber defences in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 18 November 2022- Posted
-
- Leadership
- Recruitment
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with:
-
News Article
BMA chief warns Scotland's GPs are at 'tipping point'
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
GP surgeries across Scotland are at risk of collapsing because of staff shortages and increased demand, a senior doctor has warned. Dr Andrew Buist, chairman of the British Medical Association's (BMA) Scottish GP committee, told the BBC many practices were at "tipping point". More than a third of surveyed surgeries reported at least one GP vacancy – up from just over a quarter last year. About half of the GP surgeries in Scotland took part in the BMA survey. It showed 81% of practices said demand was exceeding capacity - with 42% saying demand substantially exceeded capacity. Dr Buist told BBC Scotland: "I worry that we're reaching a tipping point for some practices. "They lose one or maybe two doctors out of three, and the remaining doctors cannot continue so they return the contract and the practice may cease to exist. "That is a real concern in some parts of Scotland that that is happening and it's going to happen increasingly as the situation develops over this winter." Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 November 2022- Posted
-
- GP practice
- GP
- (and 4 more)
-
News Article
Desperate NHS pays up to £2,500 for nursing shifts
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
NHS bosses are increasingly paying premium rates for agency staff to plug holes in rotas, the BBC has found. Spending in this area rose by 20% last year to hit £3bn in England. For many shifts, bosses have been so short-staffed they have been willing to breach the government pay caps for these agency workers, most of whom are doctors and nurses. Separate data supplied by Labour showed some NHS trusts had paid as much as £2,500 to nurses to fill shifts. Out of 60 responses from trusts, 10 reported the most expensive shift cost over £2,000, and for another 13 it was between £1,000-2,000. The BBC spoke to one cancer doctor who was offered work for £130 an hour - well above the cap for his role - and described the fees available as "astonishing" and a reflection of "desperation by management". Chief executive of Colchester hospital, Nick Hulme, says a combination of factors is playing a role, including the need to open extra wards to cope with rising demand, as well as staffing shortages. Some people are even leaving their jobs, only to return later as agency workers. He says while many agency workers do fantastic work on the wards, he would still prefer to be able to use his own staff. "We know that's best for patient care, best for patient experience. Agency staff require more supervision and tasks such as handovers take longer." Read full story Source: BBC News, 11 November 2022- Posted
-
- Recruitment
- Workforce management
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with:
-
Content Article
How can Parliament make health and care safer for all? (4 November 2022)
Mark Hughes posted an article in Others
In this blog for the cross-party think tank Policy Connect, the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care sets out its view on the biggest challenges affecting the quality and safety of health and social care outlined in its report Safer care for all - solutions from professional regulation and beyond. It describes gaps in the wider framework to protect the public highlighted in this report and considers where Parliament and the Government have an opportunity to act to support safer care for all. Related reading Patient Safety Learning: Joining up a fragmented landscape: Reflections on the PSA report ‘Safer care for all’ (12 September 2022) Working together to achieve safer care for all: a blog by Alan Clamp (12 September 2022)- Posted
-
- Regulatory issue
- Healthcare
- (and 11 more)
-
News Article
Nurses set to hold biggest-ever strike
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The biggest ever strike by nurses looks set to go ahead. The Royal College of Nursing is due to unveil the results of its ballot, which ended last week, in the next few days. The final results are being counted but RCN sources say a large majority of nurses have voted in favour of action in a dispute over pay. The RCN had recommended to its 300,000 members that they walk out. If strikes take place, they would affect non-urgent but not emergency care. The vote has involved a series of individual workplace-based ballots across the UK and if nurses do not back action at a local level it is possible some hospitals and services will not be involved. The government had appealed to nurses to "carefully consider" the impact on patients. But Pat Cullen, RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: "Huge numbers of staff - both experienced and newer recruits - are deciding they cannot see a future in a nursing profession that is not valued nor treated fairly. She added: "Our strike action will be as much for patients as it is for nurses. We have their support in doing this." Cabinet minister Oliver Dowden said the government had "well-oiled contingencies in place" for dealing with any strike action by nurses. Speaking on Sky News, Mr Dowden said essential services would be prioritised, "but of course there would be an impact as a result of a strike like that". Read full story Source: BBC News, 6 November 2022- Posted
-
- Nurse
- Workforce management
-
(and 2 more)
Tagged with:
-
Content ArticleThis webpage outlines the role of Medical Examiner Officers (MEOs), who provide the continuity and oversight that the medical examiner service requires to have the maximum benefit. It includes information on training, induction and recruitment, as well as a model job description for an MEO.
- Posted
-
- Medical examiner
- Training
-
(and 3 more)
Tagged with:
-
Content ArticleThe General Medical Council (GMC) commissioned this research to understand the decision-making processes of doctors leaving the UK workforce to practise medicine overseas. This research built on previous work by exploring migration ‘decision journeys’ and the practical steps and considerations involved at each stage of the process.
- Posted
-
- Doctor
- Recruitment
- (and 3 more)
-
News Article
NHS Scotland in a perilous situation, says doctors' union
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Scotland's NHS is in "a perilous situation" amid a staffing and funding crisis, according to the chairman of the doctors' union. Dr Iain Kennedy said urgent action was needed to tackle workload pressures ahead of a potentially "terrifying" winter period. It comes after Scotland's health secretary Humza Yousaf admitted NHS Scotland was not performing well. Mr Yousaf told BBC Scotland it would take at least five years to fix. Dr Kennedy, who is chairman of the industry body BMA Scotland, said it was good to hear Mr Yousaf being honest about the scale of the problems, but added that "frankly we cannot wait five years" for things to improve. He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: "The NHS in Scotland is in a perilous situation and we have a particular crisis around the workforce - we simply do not have enough doctors in general practice and in hospitals. "We need more urgent action because the pressures and the workload have really shot up." Dr Kennedy has called on the government to publish a "heat map" showing where NHS vacancies are unfilled across Scotland. He said: "The public need to see transparency on where the vacancies are. We think that there are probably 15% vacancies across hospital consultant posts across Scotland. "Even the government admits to 7% and that we are at least 800 GPs short in Scotland - and I, and others, suspect we are probably well over that figure now." Read full story Source: BBC News, 31 October 2022- Posted
-
- Scotland
- Leadership
- (and 7 more)
-
News Article
Nurses are working the equivalent of one day a week for nothing, research says
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Nurses are working the equivalent of one day a week for nothing, according to a study. Researchers from London Economics were commissioned by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to look at pay in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland since 2010. They found that the salary of an experienced nurse had fallen by 20% in real terms, based on a five-day week. Experienced nurses in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland would need a nominal pay rise of 45% by 2024-25 just to return their salaries to levels seen in 2010-11 in real terms, the research said. And such a pay rise would actually help the NHS save money in the long term, as it would be cheaper than hiring staff from overseas, according to the study. Dr Gavan Conlon, who oversaw the research, said that bringing staff in from overseas costs approximately £16,900 more annually than retaining a nurse, while using agency workers costs around £21,300 more per year. He said that about 32,000 nurses leave the NHS every year, many due to the failure of their pay to keep up with the rising cost of living. The RCN is balloting its 300,000 members for strike action, calling for higher pay and an effort by government to fill the hundreds of thousands of nursing vacancies across the country. Read full story Source: Sky News, 28 October 2022- Posted
-
- Nurse
- Workforce management
- (and 3 more)
-
News ArticleThe NHS is launching an effort to recruit tens of thousands of nurses to help fill the record number of vacancies that low pay, Covid and heavy workloads have created across the service. A multimedia blitz will try to raise nursing’s profile as a worthwhile career by featuring patients who benefited from nurses’ skills and dedication. NHS England’s “We are the NHS” campaign will use radio, social media and cinema advertisements to portray nursing as a varied and fulfilling role that can change people’s lives. It comes soon after NHS figures showed that the number of empty posts in nursing across hospitals, mental health, community care and other services had reached 46,828 – the largest number ever. That means that more than one in 10 nursing roles (11.8%) are unfilled across the service overall. While the NHS is short of almost every type of staff, service chiefs say the acute lack of nurses is a key reason why so many patients are waiting so long for A&E, cancer treatment and other care. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 24 October 2022
- Posted
-
- Recruitment
- Nurse
-
(and 2 more)
Tagged with: