Quitting a job and leaving nursing are two different things of course. If that number did leave nursing I would be interested in the reasons why. How many of them did over the covid policies, pay, hours and so on.

Nursing, Police, Teachers, Prison officers and many other public sector jobs (regardless of how I think they have become politicised) are highly important and you can't have a first world nation without enough of them.

I would definitely agree that the NHS system has been broken for decades. Everyone who has tried to reform it though has been resisted as it's a religion in the country.

I don't personally know what the answer is.

Edited by Stirlingsays (13 Dec 2022 10.18am)

You would think this is all quite a simple formula really. In a normal society where people have their heads screwed on you work out how many people you need in each profession and what the conditions and pay need to be to attract them.

While I'm convinced we have had mostly a lower quality of elites for some decades now I know they know that.....However, knowing something and having systems that implement them are also two different realities.

But we all love the NHS and think it's wonderful and are happy for it to cost as much as it costs.....provided it's other people who are paying for it. And provided we aren't the ones suing the NHS for compensation.

I see the usual luvvies are firmly on the bandwagon with the imminent release of a movie of the Alan Bennett play 'Allelujah'. On BBC Breakfast this morning, Jennifer Saunders was allowed to make at least two incorrect statements without any challenge from the presenters:

1) "with all the NHS cuts going on....blah, blah". Err.. you mean the cuts that have meant more money and a higher percentage of GDP than ever is now being spent on it?

2) (Paraphrased) "I remember when I was young, old people went to hospital, and when they came out they all went to something called a 'convalescent home' to recover. Well where have all the convalescent homes gone now? Old people now just rot in hospital" Errr I'm about the same age as you, Jen, and I certainly don't recall any such thing as an NHS convalescent home, and if there were some, there certainly weren't enough to accommodate ALL old, ill people. My recollection is that old people went into hospital and came out feet first in a box. Now we keep them alive at any cost.

Edited by YT (13 Dec 2022 9.10am)

Yep, agreed - if a private company had that kind of vacancy rate, you can bet your life they'd put the salary up. That's before you even consider the essential nature of the work.

It's undeniably a complex issue with no simple fix, but I also think a lot of that noise comes from the top to avoid the obvious reality that nearly every frontline worker is underpaid and overworked. No doubt there is nuance to 'fixing the NHS', but a f***in start would be paying the staff a decent living, not expecting them to work 70 hour weeks and making the role attractive enough to recruit decent candidates.

I am probably just rehashing previous posts but my view is that it is broken and no amount of money can fix it without huge reform.
Those in charge generally waste the money and on top of that appoint more chiefs on silly salaries.
The Government should pay for all clinical staff training and only get any of that back if those staff leave their posts for whatever reason - there can be a "got to work for us for X years" clause in there or lose your training costs (pro-rata).
Needing to take a degree course to be a Nurse is utter madness and that should be removed immediately.
Local works best and each Trust should be totally in charge of its area.
The money given needs to be spent wisely - but like every department in Government it is now.
The list is endless but it does need to stop being political and needs cross party support with the way forward enshrined in law so that it cannot be changed on a political whim.