Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Job Losses

http://news.aol.co.uk/nhs-face-job-cuts-despite-promise/article/20100706214049114132510

Thousands of NHS jobs are being cut despite Government promises to protect frontline services, a union has warned. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is aware of almost 10,000 posts that have been lost through recruitment freezes, redundancies and people not replaced when they retire, or which face cuts in the future. This is double the figure reported two months ago, although the RCN has now gathered details from more trusts......

I am willing to bet that most of these "job losses" come from qualified nurses at the bedside, providing direct patient care.  I know this is the case in my neck of the woods.  The trust hires untrained kids who have no intention of becoming Nurses to replace the real Nurses that flee.  The kids cannot do the job, and the qualified nurses left are covering too many patients.  The trust covers their asses by saying "oh yes we have hired more nurses".  They have not hired more nurses, they have hired kids and auxilliaries.

A trusted source tells me that a trust near mine has shed over 70 district nurse posts over the last few years.  This trust covers a pretty large area.  They lose them through retirement and "natural wastage" and don't replace them.  Registered Nurses are an older workforce and most of them are closer the retirement age than not. Newly qualified and job hunting older RN's are having great difficulty finding jobs at the bedside.

And so it goes.

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