Nurse Recruitment - National Joke

nursextreme

Between November 2009 - January 2010 a National Recruitment Panel was formed for Psychiatric and Intellectual Disability Nurses by means of panel interviews. Hundreds of newly qualified (mainly the last 3 years) who don't have HSE jobs were interviewed.
Centralized Recruitment was to be the way forward. Empty promises.
Did anyone get jobs? Not in our region.
How much did this recruitment drive cost and who got paid?
The moratorium still stands, and will continue if our union leaders sell out the future of nursing for a few pieces of silver.

Wishbone Ash

Many were offered position under the 40 day contract (critical vacancies clause) but declined it. Hence the reason why many retired staff availed of the opportunity.

gamblor1975

Dosn't Ireland have an over supply of nurses per 1000 of population compared to other developed countries? I have seen the chart on this on another post.

MagicSean

gamblor1975 wrote: »

Dosn't Ireland have an over supply of nurses per 1000 of population compared to other developed countries? I have seen the chart on this on another post.

Maybe in theory. Go to an A&E and try and find them though.

Wishbone Ash

gamblor1975 wrote: »

Dosn't Ireland have an over supply of nurses per 1000 of population compared to other developed countries? I have seen the chart on this on another post.

k_mac wrote: »

Maybe in theory. Go to an A&E and try and find them though.

The OP (and I) are referring to RPNs and RNIDs - not RGNs.

Head The Wall

k_mac wrote: »

Maybe in theory. Go to an A&E and try and find them though.

Where are they so, they have to be doing something?

It still wouldn't be a reason to go recruiting more

tinner777

Hse at it again, they paid for loads of directors of nursing and acting directors of nursing to go to Dublin for the week, travel expenses and put up in nice hotels.

It was poorly advertised down here in Cork and most students were not aware at the time if they should go, not being qualified at the time and the job freeze being on. Turns out they will not be interviewing for three years now.

Not too much hassle if your in Dublin, anywhere else, never mind, they expected students to fund their own travel and hotel costs. Now the biggest **** up here is that you applied to go on separate panels, ie you applied for work in cork, dublin etc.. So why the need for the central interviews?? Why not interview locally and forget about flight and hotel costs?

The interviews were supposed to be for permanent contracts and most people applying, i presume, would be on temporary lists, so would be on 40 day contracts anyway.

Don't believe the figures about this country being over nursed, you cant compare, especially in mental health. The Uk for instance has a load of well set up community teams, teams set up to keep people out of hospital and or out of mental health services, not just generic community nurses. My unit is currently down over ten nurses, people who have retired or moved on, that work has to be done, so its covered with overtime. The unions and management here have put forward proposals that employing newly qualified students would dramatically cut our overtime bill but no joy. It makes no sense to me that we are paying for nurses to train and then we let them go overseas. Also we let people retire and then bring them back to work part time given that these people would be on the top of their pay scale.

The hse is a right mess and getting worse by the hour. The unions are not all at fault for this, Mary h and her mate Mr Drumm need to have a very close look at themselves and what they are in charge of. We need someone from outside of ireland to come in and look at the state of the service and once they had stopped laughing we might get something done.

douglashyde

Exactly, hiring new nurses isnt the way forward; we have enought as it is. What we need to do is make our Public Health Care system work better. Not an easy task when the Public Sector is so unreasonable.

murphaph

Obviously redeployment is the key. We ARE over nursed compared to the UK (app. 10 practicing nurses per 1000 pop, Ireland 15.50 nurses per 1000 pop.) so we need to move nurses from areas of oversupply to underresourced areas, bringing their experience with them...better than sticking fresh grads in surely, for the patients anyway.

The health service is a joke alright and I agree 100% that it's not JUST the unions and their lethargic attitude towards reform, it's also over administered (why do we have a Dept. of Health if the HSE is supposed to actually run the Health Service and report directly to the minister?, why do we need so many admin staff, surely a lot of this could be eliminated through computerisation like here in Germany...every patient has a chip and pin card with their medical history on it, go to any GP or hospital in Germany and the staff can see every x-ray you've ever had, every prescription you've ever taken and so on, no doubt, all stored on computer).

The problem with trying to bring in such reforms is that the unions know 100% that down the road it means fewer staff and as they have very few union members in the private sector, the unions know they will likely lose a union sub for every person who leaves the HSE for the private sector. So they fight such efficiencies tooth and nail.

The likes of Harney and Drumm (how much is he on for running this basket case?) are also clearly responsible, but ultimately I blame the government as a whole, for not having the spine to take on the HSE vested interests and FORCE through reforms that ultimately benefit patients and the remaining staff, and making positions redundant if they are redundant.

RichardAnd

murphaph wrote: »

Obviously redeployment is the key. We ARE over nursed compared to the UK (app. 10 practicing nurses per 1000 pop, Ireland 15.50 nurses per 1000 pop.) so we need to move nurses from areas of oversupply to underresourced areas, bringing their experience with them...better than sticking fresh grads in surely, for the patients anyway.

The health service is a joke alright and I agree 100% that it's not JUST the unions and their lethargic attitude towards reform, it's also over administered (why do we have a Dept. of Health if the HSE is supposed to actually run the Health Service and report directly to the minister?, why do we need so many admin staff, surely a lot of this could be eliminated through computerisation like here in Germany...every patient has a chip and pin card with their medical history on it, go to any GP or hospital in Germany and the staff can see every x-ray you've ever had, every prescription you've ever taken and so on, no doubt, all stored on computer).

The problem with trying to bring in such reforms is that the unions know 100% that down the road it means fewer staff and as they have very few union members in the private sector, the unions know they will likely lose a union sub for every person who leaves the HSE for the private sector. So they fight such efficiencies tooth and nail.

The likes of Harney and Drumm (how much is he on for running this basket case?) are also clearly responsible, but ultimately I blame the government as a whole, for not having the spine to take on the HSE vested interests and FORCE through reforms that ultimately benefit patients and the remaining staff, and making positions redundant if they are redundant.

Very true. My dad broke his arm over in Germany and he had to get a pin put into it over there. Everything ran like clock work, the doctor actually apologised to him because his operation would not start until 15mins after they told him it would.

I think what makes the German system so much better is not simply the better organisation but the attitude of the people working there. There would seem to be no slacking, the nurses, doctors and other staff did their best all the time. They also seem to have more initiative, over here a nurse wouldn't dream of cleaning up a room (most of them) because there are "unskilled" workers to do that.

You know, my grand parents have always said that hospitals were much cleaner when the nuns ran them.

tinner777

As i have already stated you cannot compare us with other places, we are not over nursed. We do not have the systems in place that other countries have. You need to understand that before you look at those figures. Most places also have health care assistants in place as well so you would need to add those numbers in as well.

Wishbone Ash

murphaph wrote: »

so we need to move nurses from areas of oversupply to underresourced areas

So you think we should move RGNs into Mental Health and ID centres where they are not qualified to work?

Would you expect a Civil Engineer to be redeployed into Chemical Engineering?

Head The Wall

RichardAnd wrote: »

Very true. My dad broke his arm over in Germany and he had to get a pin put into it over there. Everything ran like clock work, the doctor actually apologised to him because his operation would not start until 15mins after they told him it would.

I think what makes the German system so much better is not simply the better organisation but the attitude of the people working there. There would seem to be no slacking, the nurses, doctors and other staff did their best all the time. They also seem to have more initiative, over here a nurse wouldn't dream of cleaning up a room (most of them) because there are "unskilled" workers to do that.

You know, my grand parents have always said that hospitals were much cleaner when the nuns ran them.

The union of the unskilled worker will tackle the nurse for doing something that is not her job. This is what our staff do

murphaph

RichardAnd wrote: »

You know, my grand parents have always said that hospitals were much cleaner when the nuns ran them.

Well, we didn't have MRSA epidemics back then, when hospitals were scrubbed clean and a hospital smelled like a hospital!

murphaph

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

So you think we should move RGNs into Mental Health and ID centres where they are not qualified to work?

Would you expect a Civil Engineer to be redeployed into Chemical Engineering?

A Civil engineer would use all the same mathematics as a chemical engineer, he would need to train in the chemical sepcific elements (sorry, bad pun) of the new job, but would be better than a fresh chemical engineering graduate as his knowledge of civils would likely be quite useful in chemical engineering, design of chemical plant etc.

Similarly...

I would of course expect a RGN to be able to accept whatever specialised training they might need to work in mental health, but I can't accept that the knowledge of medicine an RGN would bring to the new job would be outweighed by a freshly qualified graduate and it would save on the cost of an extra employee and would add to the RGNs capabilities. I see no downside other than requiring fewer nurses.

Wishbone Ash

murphaph wrote: »

I would of course expect a RGN to be able to accept whatever specialised training they might need to work in mental health

They would be required to do an 18 month post graduate course to register in another discipline. I don't think the post grad courses are being run at the moment and even if they were, it's not much consolation to those services who require RNIDs/RPNs immediately.

Padraig Mor

tinner777 wrote: »

Most places also have health care assistants in place as well so you would need to add those numbers in as well.

Do we not have those too? Would I be right in thinking that thousands of them were hired in the last 10 years or so because nurses decided they were too "educated" to be doing traditional nursing work....

nursextreme

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Many were offered position under the 40 day contract (critical vacancies clause) but declined it. Hence the reason why many retired staff availed of the opportunity.

No offers in our region - we employ 20+ Full time agency Psych Nurses

tinner777

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Do we not have those too? Would I be right in thinking that thousands of them were hired in the last 10 years or so because nurses decided they were too "educated" to be doing traditional nursing work....

no, you'd be wrong. But if you'd like to train someone to degree level and pay them over €30,000 to make beds, work away.....

nursextreme

tinner777 wrote: »

Hse at it again, they paid for loads of directors of nursing and acting directors of nursing to go to Dublin for the week, travel expenses and put up in nice hotels. .

The Real Winners in the National Recruitment Campaign €€€€€€€€€.
Think of all the administration that was involved to boot, €€€€€€€€€€€.

The Real losers are the Candidates who were strung along all for the hope of a job that would never be. The time and effort in preparing let alone the expense - someone is mocking us.

murphaph

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

They would be required to do an 18 month post graduate course to register in another discipline. I don't think the post grad courses are being run at the moment and even if they were, it's not much consolation to those services who require RNIDs/RPNs immediately.

There will be a lot of losers during this recession, unfortunately people with mental illnesses will not escape the budget defecit any more than a family struggling on the dole having lost their jobs.

I would see it as more cost effective to compel nurses in overstaffed areas to do the 18 month course (the patients will have to wait unfortunately, there is a finite amount of money for all services), thus gaining valuable knowledge BUT also bringing with them their general medical experience that a fresh grad simply can't have. The alternative would be to make the experienced nurse redundant and hire a fresh grad, which to my mind would be a waste of the experience of the nurse tbh.

We can't just hire new psych nurses and ignore the overstaffing in other areas. That is not acceptable.

tinner777

Have you any evidence at all stating that we are over nursed?

murphaph

tinner777 wrote: »

Have you any evidence at all stating that we are over nursed?

We are over nursed compared to every other country in Europe.

Something is deeply wrong with a system that has 15.50 nurses per 1000 population but which delivers a poorer end product than a system that has fewer than 10, like France, the UK and Germany, for example.

Being over staffed with nurses is just one of the multitude of problems the HSE basket case has of course.

Ste.phen

murphaph wrote: »

Being over staffed with nurses is just one of the multitude of problems the HSE basket case has of course.

The problem is we're overstaffed with the wrong nurses, the wrong type of nurses, and people paid as nurses who are doing admin work.

Unfortunately that problem is a lot harder to fix, so we've repeatedly gone for the 'stop hiring nurses' solution to save money, and not the 'restructure things so we have the right nurses doing the right job' solution.

tinner777

murphaph wrote: »

We are over nursed compared to every other country in Europe.

Something is deeply wrong with a system that has 15.50 nurses per 1000 population but which delivers a poorer end product than a system that has fewer than 10, like France, the UK and Germany, for example.

Being over staffed with nurses is just one of the multitude of problems the HSE basket case has of course.

Yes, but i have already stated you cannot compare us due to the different systems they all have in place. I might be out of line here but you seem to think that nurses are hanging around wards doing nothing, thats just not true. In mental health, the uk, have specialized community teams keeping people out of hospital, less inpatient acute beds, less overall nurses, we do not have them and are in no rush to develop them. We work within the system the doctors, government and unions want to maintain. The work is there for all of those 15.5 nurses per 1000, there's no way around it apart from changing the system. However changing said system costs money initially, the mentally ill in this country are being screwed from all sides. The total percent of the health budget spent has gone down from 9% to 5.4%, the only treatments available are hospitalization, never mind I digress

The ops original point is a totally valid one and my first post is what should be making you angry, I am, my place is work is run on overtime. We pay to train nurses, we pay!!!

I could no more go and work on a general ward than i could fly a plane, its a totally different job. I would have no use of a general trained nurse, if retrained they'd only be at the same level as a graduate anyway but be on the top increment of pay.

Back on point, who decided that it would be a good idea to pay for management to spend a week in Dublin, pay for their hotels and flights, from all over the country? That if you wanted a job in cork you would have to travel to dublin and be interviewed by the management in cork.

murphaph

tinner777 wrote: »

I could no more go and work on a general ward than i could fly a plane, its a totally different job. I would have no use of a general trained nurse, if retrained they'd only be at the same level as a graduate anyway but be on the top increment of pay.

I don't agree with the bit in bold. Do you really believe a nurse with say 10 years general ward experience, having done his or her 18 month post grad in mental health, would be as useful as a fresh graduate? All that medical knowledge and experience would really be useless in a mental health capacity? I believe the body and mind are quite closely linked, so maybe in my layman's opinion I'm way off, but I don't think so.

I agree that the structures need reform and when I said were were "over nursed" I never implied nurses were hanging around wards chatting, but they are clearly not being utilised where they are needed and we are paying agency rates when we should bite the bullet and give the additional training to already qualified nurses to allow them to be redeployed to where they are needed.

Wishbone Ash

murphaph wrote: »

we are paying agency rates when we should bite the bullet and give the additional training to already qualified nurses

It's generally cheaper to pay agency rates that to employ new staff just in the same way that many commercial companies lease vehicles rather than buying them. Agency staff are only called when required on an ad hoc basis and can be cancelled at relatively short notice. They hospital doesn't have to provide for annual leave, sick pay, pension etc.

murphaph

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

It's generally cheaper to pay agency rates that to employ new staff just in the same way that many commercial companies lease vehicles rather than buying them. Agency staff are only called when required on an ad hoc basis and can be cancelled at relatively short notice. They hospital doesn't have to provide for annual leave, sick pay, pension etc.

I thought it was a problem I had read about on boards (another nurse). She said the moratorium on new hirings had lead to a plethora of agency nurses working effectively full time, except costing twice as much as a staff nurse. Maybe she was waffling, I took her at face value.

nursextreme

murphaph wrote: »

There will be a lot of losers during this recession, unfortunately people with mental illnesses will not escape the budget defecit any more than a family struggling on the dole having lost their jobs.

I would see it as more cost effective to compel nurses in overstaffed areas to do the 18 month course (the patients will have to wait unfortunately, there is a finite amount of money for all services), thus gaining valuable knowledge BUT also bringing with them their general medical experience that a fresh grad simply can't have. The alternative would be to make the experienced nurse redundant and hire a fresh grad, which to my mind would be a waste of the experience of the nurse tbh.

We can't just hire new psych nurses and ignore the overstaffing in other areas. That is not acceptable.

Would you like to break that news to the four years of Psych Nurses and ID nurses currently in training? What do you propose I do now I am a specifically trained Psych Nurse? Become a care assistant with an RGN as my boss.

tinner777

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

It's generally cheaper to pay agency rates that to employ new staff just in the same way that many commercial companies lease vehicles rather than buying them. Agency staff are only called when required on an ad hoc basis and can be cancelled at relatively short notice. They hospital doesn't have to provide for annual leave, sick pay, pension etc.

murphaph wrote: »

I thought it was a problem I had read about on boards (another nurse). She said the moratorium on new hirings had lead to a plethora of agency nurses working effectively full time, except costing twice as much as a staff nurse. Maybe she was waffling, I took her at face value.

Agency rates are much higher, they use to be crazy money, which covered you for work and holidays etc.. I don't know the exact figures but I'm sure you'd save money by employing someone full time rather than booking agency for a year. In my place overtime is cheaper than agency.

Also murphaph, I'm a ward manager, spending ten years in a medical ward is no preparation for a job in mental health, the only advantage might be ten years of life experience. Again, its a totally different job, you cant compare caring for some one post surgery and someone who is depressed, its just not the same. Your going to have to take me at face value.

OP i feel your pain, things might improve, if not you'll have to consider moving. Good luck.

nursextreme

Ste.phen wrote: »

The problem is we're overstaffed with the wrong nurses, the wrong type of nurses, and people paid as nurses who are doing admin work.

Stephen is right - Many of the Nurses making up the statistical numbers are in Admin (Deployment for example) rather than the Front line where they are needed. Also many of these still work weekends and get premium pay where they could do their work on non premium hours.

nursextreme

Just to Clarify: The Opening post relates to Psychiatric and Intellectual Disability Nursing disciplines. There was no National recruitment for General Nursing that I know of.

My original point is that there are numerous Psych and a few ID qualified with the last three years nurses working full time through agency that had interviews and got places on Panels but no jobs have been offered to these individuals apart from in the HSE East apparently.

Thanks for all the comments so far!!!!!!!!

Welease

nursextreme wrote: »

Would you like to break that news to the four years of Psych Nurses and ID nurses currently in training? What do you propose I do now I am a specifically trained Psych Nurse? Become a care assistant with an RGN as my boss.

Retrain or Look for work abroad or Wait until the situation changes... You have the same options open to everyone who is unemployed.. most of the choices suck, but thats the harsh reality of the economic situation.

We have 10's of thousands of construction workers in a similar position, we are not in a position to start building more empty housing estates just to get them employed either.

Wishbone Ash

tinner777 wrote: »

Agency rates are much higher, they use to be crazy money, which covered you for work and holidays etc.

IIRC they are paid at the 4th point of the scale. Therefore a nurse with 30 years experience, who may be an assistant director, is paid the same on agency as a new staff nurse.

nursextreme wrote: »

many of these still work weekends and get premium pay where they could do their work on non premium hours.

You are indeed correct but many of these nurses wouldn't have agreed to go into administration if they were required to work 'office hours'. If you were happy enough working shifts over 7 days and were then requested to do Monday to Friday resulting in a 40% pay cut, would you do it?

tinner777

what nurses are you talking about in admin?

irishh_bob

tinner777 wrote: »

Yes, but i have already stated you cannot compare us due to the different systems they all have in place. I might be out of line here but you seem to think that nurses are hanging around wards doing nothing, thats just not true. In mental health, the uk, have specialized community teams keeping people out of hospital, less inpatient acute beds, less overall nurses, we do not have them and are in no rush to develop them. We work within the system the doctors, government and unions want to maintain. The work is there for all of those 15.5 nurses per 1000, there's no way around it apart from changing the system. However changing said system costs money initially, the mentally ill in this country are being screwed from all sides. The total percent of the health budget spent has gone down from 9% to 5.4%, the only treatments available are hospitalization, never mind I digress

The ops original point is a totally valid one and my first post is what should be making you angry, I am, my place is work is run on overtime. We pay to train nurses, we pay!!!

I could no more go and work on a general ward than i could fly a plane, its a totally different job. I would have no use of a general trained nurse, if retrained they'd only be at the same level as a graduate anyway but be on the top increment of pay.

Back on point, who decided that it would be a good idea to pay for management to spend a week in Dublin, pay for their hotels and flights, from all over the country? That if you wanted a job in cork you would have to travel to dublin and be interviewed by the management in cork.

perhaps you would list the ways in which the mentlally unwell are being screwed , its a subject close to my heart as i have a relative who has serious mental health problems , his familys biggest problem has been trying to have him committed , our system is very liberal regarding the mentally unwell and you more or less have to kill someone before you are locked up , care in the community is the main mantra , beit from social workers or psychiatricsts ,IMO , those who suffer most are the familys of those who are not the full schilling

nursextreme

Welease wrote: »

Retrain or Look for work abroad or Wait until the situation changes... You have the same options open to everyone who is unemployed.. most of the choices suck, but thats the harsh reality of the economic situation.

We have 10's of thousands of construction workers in a similar position, we are not in a position to start building more empty housing estates just to get them employed either.

That's a completely different situation, supply outweighed demand in construction.Fueled by greed! In Psychiatric nursing the demand remains and is fueled unemployment and economic situation. Now we have less front line staff to deal with matters.

Wishbone Ash

irishh_bob wrote: »

perhaps you would list the ways in which the mentlally unwell are being screwed , its a subject close to my heart as i have a relative who has serious mental health problems , his familys biggest problem has been trying to have him committed , our system is very liberal regarding the mentally unwell and you more or less have to kill someone before you are locked up ,IMO , those who suffer most are the familys of those who are not the full schilling

Unfortunately though, for many years, it was the other way around. Our psychiatric services have many elderly institutionalised patients who should have never been committed but were done so by their families for very spurious reasons when it was easy to do so.

tinner777

irishh_bob wrote: »

perhaps you would list the ways in which the mentlally unwell are being screwed , its a subject close to my heart as i have a relative who has serious mental health problems , his familys biggest problem has been trying to have him committed , our system is very liberal regarding the mentally unwell and you more or less have to kill someone before you are locked up , care in the community is the main mantra , beit from social workers or psychiatricsts ,IMO , those who suffer most are the familys of those who are not the full schilling

sorry to hear about your relative. Obviously i cant comment on your relative. You should be able to get your relative assessed under the mental health act at any time. Where do you want me to start the new mental health act? Money wasted from top to bottom, new buildings for meetings, massive fees for solicitors and psychiatrists popping into units to assess someone for ten mins.

Here in cork, you get banged up in hospital for a few weeks regardless of illness and then your thrown out without any support, maybe a cpn will pop in if your lucky enough to be added to their list of 200 other clients.

Families get no support, so the second someone shows any warning signs of getting unwell people are ferried back to hospital only to be told that they are not unwell enough to need hospital but your consultant might see you next week if they've time after seeing fifty other poor soles.

Guards pick up someone pissed up, violent, instead of them spending the night in the cells, they drop them off in our place for assessment, so whilst we spend a week detoxing them, anyone needing that bed is turned away. Last week some lad whilst pissed up punched the mirror in a pub toilet after utd got beat, 4 days in our place, you couldn't make it up.


Anyone involved in psych services would totally agree that the illness effects everyone in the family I'm just sorry that currently the system in place doesn't allow for the full holistic support.

There are no rehab facilities, there are currently four people in my ward that will be there for the rest of their lives, the youngest of them is 51 years old. We have to take all patients of all ages, recently had a 14 year old girl and a 85 year old man, stuck in the middle of thirty other mentally ill patients. That's just not right.

Wishbone Ash

tinner777 wrote: »

Where do you want me to start the new mental health act? Money wasted from top to bottom, new buildings for meetings, massive fees for solicitors and psychiatrists popping into units to assess someone for ten mins

No forgetting of course that, under the new act, any patient who sleeps in a locked roon, must have a 'special' nurse outside (in addition to the normal compliment). And people complain about overtime in psychiatric hospitals? How else could such ad hoc arrangements be covered?

nursextreme

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

No forgetting of course that, under the new act, any patient who sleeps in a locked roon, must have a 'special' nurse outside (in addition to the normal compliment). And people complain about overtime in psychiatric hospitals? How else could such ad hoc arrangements be covered?

I do a good few specials and have yet to see a patient in a locked room, specials are used for patients who are a risk to themselves, others or when they are children cared for in the adult unit because we don't have child facilities. The other scenario for a special is when a psychiatric patient is treated in the general hospital for medical reasons and is a potential management problem which RGNs are not trained for.

Jane5

Nursing isn't fecking fruit picking. Why can't the HSE understand this? There isn't a seasonal need. Well staffed hospitals with permanent staff who are very familiar with the institution, the procedures in place, and the area in general are what is needed. Anything less poses, in my opinion, a danger to patients.

Workforce requirements should be able to be anticipated better than this, and agency nurses should only be used for cases of mat leave, sick leave etc.

In addition, nursing, like medicine, like most highly skilled jobs, requires ongoing experience. This is not obtained by working haphazard shifts as an agency worker or on multiple short term temporary contracts, where by the time you settle in and become familiar with the way somewhere works, the patients, and the doctors it is time to pick up and go again.

The hospitals Down Under where I used to work had a nursing "pool". This was made up of nurses that were permanently employed by the hospital, but came in every day, or night and were sent to work on whichever ward was down a person, or extra busy, or whatever. This ensured that they never used agency staff which were unfamiliar with the hospital, the patients and the procedures, instead, they used nurses who were intimate with the hospital, often knowing more about the various departments than the nurses who stayed on one ward, and were also not paid agency rates, which left the hospital in a better financial position.

tinner777

Jane5 wrote: »

Nursing isn't fecking fruit picking. Why can't the HSE understand this? There isn't a seasonal need. Well staffed hospitals with permanent staff who are very familiar with the institution, the procedures in place, and the area in general are what is needed. Anything less poses, in my opinion, a danger to patients.

Workforce requirements should be able to be anticipated better than this, and agency nurses should only be used for cases of mat leave, sick leave etc.

In addition, nursing, like medicine, like most highly skilled jobs, requires ongoing experience. This is not obtained by working haphazard shifts as an agency worker or on multiple short term temporary contracts, where by the time you settle in and become familiar with the way somewhere works, the patients, and the doctors it is time to pick up and go again.

The hospitals Down Under where I used to work had a nursing "pool". This was made up of nurses that were permanently employed by the hospital, but came in every day, or night and were sent to work on whichever ward was down a person, or extra busy, or whatever. This ensured that they never used agency staff which were unfamiliar with the hospital, the patients and the procedures, instead, they used nurses who were intimate with the hospital, often knowing more about the various departments than the nurses who stayed on one ward, and were also not paid agency rates, which left the hospital in a better financial position.

Great post

irishh_bob

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Unfortunately though, for many years, it was the other way around. Our psychiatric services have many elderly institutionalised patients who should have never been committed but were done so by their families for very spurious reasons when it was easy to do so.

agreed , thier was time when people were put in the big house for merley being slightly odd but the pendelum has completley swung the other way now , the rights of the person who is not right completley over ride every other consideration including the wellbeing of the unwell persons family and the broader public , thier have been many people murdered over the years due to the fact that pre-emptive action was not taken against what were complete nutters , brendan o donnell was notorious in his area ( my mum is from that part of the country ) long before he became a tripple murderer , a young man from the midlands was hacked to death a few years ago , having been in the capital for a weekend at his cousins stag party , on returning back to his cousins appartment late one saturday night , he was attacked by a knife wielding maniac , when arrested , the guy claimed he had just killed the devil

i have a cousin who is convinced jesus is coming next wednesday , accused his elderly neighbour of having satan inside her and who claims he sees st peter on a regular basis , his mother with the help of the parish GP have attempted to have him admitted to the local psychiatric hospital but the ruling psychiatricst has vetoed every attempt , claiming that his problem is not psychiatric but aquired brain injury , engaging in semantics , fudge and buck passing are the name of the game when it comes to dealing with lunatics in our health service and PC liberalism is the dominant ethos

Wishbone Ash

Jane5 wrote: »

agency nurses should only be used for cases of mat leave, sick leave etc

Under the current HSE regulations, Maternity Leave cannot be covered with replacement staff and only sick leave which exceeds 28 days can be covered.

nursextreme

tinner777 wrote: »

Great post

Agreed it takes someone who experiences the situation to really understand the current state of affairs.

Piriz

hi everyone,
i don't wish to derail this thread but if anyone would like to PM me about current and or future employment statuses and forecasts for occupational therapists in Ireland and even abroad, i'd greatly appreciate any information or experiences on this, thanks.

nursextreme

murphaph wrote: »

Obviously redeployment is the key. We ARE over nursed compared to the UK (app. 10 practicing nurses per 1000 pop, Ireland 15.50 nurses per 1000 pop.) so we need to move nurses from areas of oversupply to underresourced areas, bringing their experience with them...better than sticking fresh grads in surely, for the patients anyway.

Where are all the areas that are oversupplied with Nurses, as far as I can see it front-line nursing is stretched - if we had no students we'd be rightly screwed - at this stage inexperienced staff are better than no staff.

nursextreme

tinner777 wrote: »

The interviews were supposed to be for permanent contracts and most people applying, i presume, would be on temporary lists, so would be on 40 day contracts anyway.

Of the 50 or so people interviewed from my Region "Limerick Mental Health" Maybe 4 had temporary contracts, 15 were unqualified final year students the remaining 30 were working either full time agency or part time agency or not at all. No one has got an offer of any kind yet to date.

murphaph

nursextreme wrote: »

Would you like to break that news to the four years of Psych Nurses and ID nurses currently in training? What do you propose I do now I am a specifically trained Psych Nurse? Become a care assistant with an RGN as my boss.

Sorry, but that's not a reason to hire you.

Lots and lots and lots of grads (who have also been educated at the taxpayers' expense) in all sorts of disciplines will leave college with no job top walk into.

I would rather see nurses redeployed from other areas (after adequate retraining) than just hiring more grad nurses into a public sector which is already costing way more than we can afford. We have to cut our cloth to suit our measure.

murphaph

nursextreme wrote: »

Where are all the areas that are oversupplied with Nurses, as far as I can see it front-line nursing is stretched - if we had no students we'd be rightly screwed - at this stage inexperienced staff are better than no staff.

We have statistically 50% more practicing nurses per capita than the UK. If these nurses are being tied up in admin roles (one of the reasons given by nurses on this thread for "skewing" the figures) then the thing to do is redeploy admin staff from overstaffed departments in the HSE into these roles and free up these nurses to nurse. The solution is NOT to just hire more staff into an already overstaffed HSE.