Good day
Been listening in to these postings - I’ve worked in the NHS OH for the
past 10 years and although in that time there’s never been masses of
applicants, there have been particular problems recently recruiting
trained advisors. We never had problems recruiting at screening nurse or
training post levels.
I think historically NHS work has always been seen as the poor relation
and, although there are many examples of 'good' departments around, there
are still quite a few that aren’t and they're the ones that give the rest
of us a poor press. Lack of investment and quality standards, as well as
not allowing ‘entrepreneurial’ profits to go back into the service
(usually skimmed off to bail out another part of the Trust) have all had
their effects. However, so have the entrenched attitudes amongst OH
staff – examples of which have been given by others.
Yes….the NHS can’t always compete on salary, although a recent report
suggested that this wasn’t always the case. I also hear that NHS work
isn’t challenging enough – I can’t imagine an area more challenging –
there’s heaps to get your teeth into, as the NHS is way behind industry in
terms of H&S. Not autonomous enough is something I also hear – although
I’m never quite sure what they mean – work is what you make it. Training
posts have always been available – albeit sparsely - I’d suggest that
there is many a private company out there who has on its payroll an
advisor trained in the NHS.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky - I’ve always worked with nursing colleagues who
have had some business acumen to take a service forward, so I have been
able to gain a wide variety of experience inside and outside the NHS. I
currently work with a group of people that includes a service manager
whose role is to ‘look after’ the business side of things – which means I
can get on with managing the clinical side.
I believe in the NHS – I also believe that NHS staff deserve a better deal
than they’d had in the past. Please don’t tar us all with the same
brush - there is a huge amount of excellent (not just good) practice out
there and they aren’t all very young teams - after all most of the team I
work with are over (well in some cases) the age of 40.
Regards
Audrey Du'Mont
Clinical Nurse Manager
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