[Politics] The Sun - nurses ?

[jcdenton08]

I agree with that. In an ideal world the best person would get the job. I cont help but wonder though: is this job more likely to go to the best qualified person (the preferred outcome for everyone and one that is protected as best as we can by legislation) or is it likely to go to a non white straight male to fill a quota? I would ask if these are the kind of jobs used to full quotas - not in my experience. Or is it just as likely (or more likely) to go to a favourite employee, friend or acquaintance or family member of someone high up or on the panel.

It is sad that we haven't got the legislation quite right to stamp out this other stuff.

My point was more about getting angry and frustrated about something that the poster has no idea if it is happening. Or has happened.

And I agree with that, particularly the last paragraph. It’s the most likely outcome, but it hasn’t happened. And even if it did, the world isn’t going to end.

When working for a local council in the arts sector, I personally was encouraged by higher ups to increase the number of ethnic minority employees in the staff. The problem is, none of the candidates had the same skills and experience and I ended up with a pretty much all white staff (except myself, who is mixed race)

 

[Triggaaar]

Hugely insulting thing to say.
I have been around nurses all my life and they are far from fragile

You've misread a joke. Westander said 'my wife... wants to spend every shift helping the sick, the old and less experienced colleagues' - it read like her less experienced colleagues are sick and old.

 

[GT49er]

Usually there is merit and equity style protections for this type of job. You could apply for the job and then see who gets the job and see if your suspicions are correct and then use the freedom of information act to show that the incumbent got the job because they were not a straight white male. Then take them through the tribunal process to get it proven. This one will involve looking at legislation which maybe considered unnecessary, politically correct and woke.

Or

Stick with your totally baseless assumption and add it to your list of grievances about the modern woke world.

Or

Not make such daft assumptions in the first place.

The third one is the easiest and least frustrating.

.....or ......here comes one of the predicted NSC knee-jerk reactions. Go for it, sunshine - your woke credentials are shining!


Your cavalry will be arriving soon, no doubt. Although maybe some of them will reluctantly accept the unacceptable and unspeakable truth. We'll see ................. perhaps someone will reveal the successful candidate after he/she is appointed.

 

[Triggaaar]

That's a bit harsh.

See above.

I work with nurses and my wife is frontline nhs.

 

[Berty23]

https://www.healthjobsuk.com/job/UK...S_Foundation_Trust/Director/Director-v4828381

Playing devil’s advocate here. Isn’t this the sort of thing that lots of people actually want? They talk about MPs and say that they are not from the real world so how can they make decisions when they have no experience of what they are doing?

I am not saying I think the job is justified because I don’t know enough about the area but it is quite possible that someone on that money can find lots of efficiencies thanks to their lived experience and improve the service for lots of otherwise disenfranchised people. As I said, I don’t know the facts but the automatic assumption people make it is a daft Job might be wrong.

It is a bit like when people say sack the penpushers and just have more nurses and doctors. Great idea. I really support the idea of a highly trained consultant spending half their day organising surgery timings and sending out letters. Oh know, that would be insane. You need people trained as administrators to administer and people trained as clinicians to do the clinical work.

Schools is an area I know lots about. Some people think the school business manager or finance director in a multi academy trust are a waste of money. But when a two form entry primary school has a 2 million quid budget or a medium sized multi academy trust has 50 million quid then surely you want someone who is trained in finance to help run the thing as efficiently as possible. Let the teachers look after that sort of thing.

 

[BadFish]

And I agree with that, particularly the last paragraph. It’s the most likely outcome, but it hasn’t happened. And even if it did, the world isn’t going to end.

When working for a local council in the arts sector, I personally was encouraged by higher ups to increase the number of ethnic minority employees in the staff. The problem is, none of the candidates had the same skills and experience and I ended up with a pretty much all white staff (except myself, who is mixed race)

Yes I can imagine, quota are a contentious issue that I am still unsure of where I stand.

Can I ask though we're there measures in place to ensure that you chose the most qualified candidate and could provide evidence for this if necessary?

I work in teaching in Australia and there is a reasonably robust merit and equity process in place to ensure that employers can justify their decisions? It doesn't always work perfectly but it serves a decent purpose until someone comes up with something better.

 

[BadFish]

.....or ......here comes one of the predicted NSC knee-jerk reactions. Go for it, sunshine - your woke credentials are shining!


Your cavalry will be arriving soon, no doubt. Although maybe some of them will reluctantly accept the unacceptable and unspeakable truth. We'll see ................. perhaps someone will reveal the successful candidate after he/she is appointed.

A great retort to my post.

Yeah . . . But . . . You're woke!!

I only come on here for the intellectual debate.

 

[jcdenton08]

Playing devil’s advocate here. Isn’t this the sort of thing that lots of people actually want? They talk about MPs and say that they are not from the real world so how can they make decisions when they have no experience of what they are doing?

I am not saying I think the job is justified because I don’t know enough about the area but it is quite possible that someone on that money can find lots of efficiencies thanks to their lived experience and improve the service for lots of otherwise disenfranchised people. As I said, I don’t know the facts but the automatic assumption people make it is a daft Job might be wrong.

It is a bit like when people say sack the penpushers and just have more nurses and doctors. Great idea. I really support the idea of a highly trained consultant spending half their day organising surgery timings and sending out letters. Oh know, that would be insane. You need people trained as administrators to administer and people trained as clinicians to do the clinical work.

Schools is an area I know lots about. Some people think the school business manager or finance director in a multi academy trust are a waste of money. But when a two form entry primary school has a 2 million quid budget or a medium sized multi academy trust has 50 million quid then surely you want someone who is trained in finance to help run the thing as efficiently as possible. Let the teachers look after that sort of thing.

I think the salary is, to use the current parlance, “problematic”. The second big question mark would be the effectiveness of the role; is this something which can’t be done with focus groups, you know, the public’s experiences collectively driving policy changes. As opposed to one singular person’s experience, coming from a very specific individual angle.

If they wanted to “listen” I can think of much more effective ways of getting feedback to assess and improve performance, than paying someone £115k a year.

 

[HH Brighton]

I just feel so sorry for the patients who had chemotherapy or radiotherapy booked on the strike dates and it had to be postponed at short notice. It's playing with people's lives.

If they can afford to strike and have a day watching Loose Women or whatever without pay, then they can't be that badly off. My older sister is a nurse and refused to strike because she cares very deeply for her patients.

Moron of the day prize won

 

[jcdenton08]

Yes I can imagine, quota are a contentious issue that I am still unsure of where I stand.

Can I ask though we're there measures in place to ensure that you chose the most qualified candidate and could provide evidence for this if necessary?

I work in teaching in Australia and there is a reasonably robust merit and equity process in place to ensure that employers can justify their decisions? It doesn't always work perfectly but it serves a decent purpose until someone comes up with something better.

The council used to assess, from what I could gather, based on the (voluntary) equal opportunities monitoring forms upon application. These were collated and compared like for like with other sources to reach a “target figure”. I’d then get emails gently encouraging me and reminding me of the benefits of a diverse workforce.

I’d simply hire the best candidate based on experience, training and interview.

 

[BadFish]

The council used to assess, from what I could gather, based on the (voluntary) equal opportunities monitoring forms upon application. These were collated and compared like for like with other sources to reach a “target figure”. I’d then get emails gently encouraging me and reminding me of the benefits of a diverse workforce.

I’d simply hire the best candidate based on experience, training and interview.

Thanks for the info.

What about the best candidate, did you have to justify that decision to anyone?

 

[jcdenton08]

Thanks for the info.

What about the best candidate, did you have to justify that decision to anyone?

Not on a case by case basis, the approach is always statistical analysis of the overall department. Every application was processed and tracked centrally, so someone in HR probably monitored it. It’s pretty easy to justify when you have one graduate who went to RADA and had years of experience, and another candidate who did a few school plays 16 years ago - for example.

 

[The Clamp]

In 18 months time we'll be in safe hands, all in the garden will be rosy and there SHALL be jam for tea.

Will we? How so?

 

[Wardy's twin]

All the nurses we know, they all qualified in the early 00's are band 6 or 7, earning £38k to £47k. The lucrative pension scheme is on top of that, enabling a 25 or 30 year retirement where money should never be a worry.

I saw that interview, they said their net pay was less than in 2007. It doesn't stack up.

A former sister-of-law of mine was a highly qualified nurse at the old Royal Alex in 1995 on £14k. Under the radar, various governments not just Blair's gade substantial pay awards.

But I genuinely feel sorry for recently qualified nurses on mid-£20k's pay in this neck of the woods. That's no living.

The NHS is a big organisation and not all nurses have the same bad working conditions so can see why some don't want to get involved. But your last point that is key to the whole debate , those that are in and have been for 20 years have a reasonable salary (not great but reasonable) the new ones coming in don't nor do they have the benefit of free training and as a consequence they have nominal large debts against them ( nominal because if they continue to earn little money they don't pay the debt).

The strike is also about where the NHS is going to be in 5 to 10 years and its clear the Tories want to offload those bits that can make a profit, leaving the NHS in an even worse state e.g. dealing with the elderly or leaving it to pick up the tab for expensive treatments like cancer. Those nurses who say the strike is not for them need to consider that the strike is more than their individual pay or conditions it's about what's going to happen in the longer term.

Without the the newbies the NHS is f***ed and currently the churn and vacancies means the issue is getting worse.

I am not a nurse or in the NHS but over the last 4 years have spent a lot of time in hospitals because of my wife's ill health so have seen close up A&E, Ongology wards, Covid wards , ICU. Most of the nurses have been brilliant - not all . many worked a lot more hours than they should , often doing 14 hours on a 12 hour shift, often working more shifts than they wanted. yes they see it as a vocation but that does not give the government the right to abuse the nurses(and doctors) working conditions.

Finally , the strike occurred because the government won't sit down and talk to the RCN , yes talk nothing about agreeing a deal just be willing to talk.

 

[The Clamp]

Tory's command the people to go out and bang a pot for the nurses - The people go out and bang a pot.

Tory's command the same people to condemn those same nurses because they want to protect the NHS - the people condemn them.

People are so f***ing dumb.

 

[Triggaaar]

Tory's command the people to go out and bang a pot for the nurses - The people go out and bang a pot.

Tory's command the same people to condemn those same nurses because they want to protect the NHS - the people condemn them.

People are so f***ing dumb.

A lot of people, maybe most, did clap (or bang a pot). Are most people condemning nurses at the moment?

 

[Berty23]

I think the salary is, to use the current parlance, “problematic”. The second big question mark would be the effectiveness of the role; is this something which can’t be done with focus groups, you know, the public’s experiences collectively driving policy changes. As opposed to one singular person’s experience, coming from a very specific individual angle.

If they wanted to “listen” I can think of much more effective ways of getting feedback to assess and improve performance, than paying someone £115k a year.

But that’s the thing. Organising focus groups with people with specific characteristics can cost loads. Maybe the person coming in has lots of contacts and can make facilitation of these groups much better. The point is also made about it being board level so this gets to the top and not just some lower level dismissed as a do gooder for doing a few focus groups.

Do we know if other areas have someone like this and have evaluated the role to check whether it is value for money? Quite often things people assume to be bad ideas can be good and the flip side is when things assumed to be good are actually bad.

A good example is “scared straight” in the states. Youths getting into trouble experience prison “to put them off” and people patted themselves on the back for a great system to reduce crime. It was only when it was evaluated that people realised it increased reoffending compared to a control group. So it costs money to make things worse but politicians loved it anyway so on it went.

We simply can’t judge whether something is a good idea without more facts.

 

[dsr-burnley]

It is a bit like when people say sack the penpushers and just have more nurses and doctors. Great idea. I really support the idea of a highly trained consultant spending half their day organising surgery timings and sending out letters. Oh know, that would be insane. You need people trained as administrators to administer and people trained as clinicians to do the clinical work.

Schools is an area I know lots about. Some people think the school business manager or finance director in a multi academy trust are a waste of money. But when a two form entry primary school has a 2 million quid budget or a medium sized multi academy trust has 50 million quid then surely you want someone who is trained in finance to help run the thing as efficiently as possible. Let the teachers look after that sort of thing.

I think for most people it's not quite so black and white as all that. The choice isn't (or shouldn't be) between keeping all the administrators we have now or sacking all of them. There's a huge range of mid-point views that says there are too many highly paid administrators doing jobs that don't need doing.

Your schools example being a case in point. Having a finance manager in a school is a good idea. But then you have more finance managers in the local education offices, and more finance managers in the district education offices, and it all mounts up to too many finance managers.

A finance manager in schools and public service organisations in general) is a different job from finance manager in business, by and large, because the whole emphasis is different. The businessperson has to worry principally about getting the customers in to generate profit. The school has to worry principally about how much to spend and what to spend it on, because the income is determined by outside factors.

 

[sydney]

I know three nurses, and they pretty much all have said the same. I suppose it's because they are empathic by nature, they said, everyone is feeling the pinch at the moment, so we just need to dig deep again, as harming other humans is just not on our agendas.

mrs and daughter are nurses , pretty much this although they are pretty pissed off en masse about the current situation , in this country we seem to have billions to spend on new roads with soa surveillance every few hundred mtrs , brand new guns and ppe including riot vehicles but when it comes to nurses the govt. knows what kind of people they are dealing with , they know they won't compromise their patients , your nurses strike is being undertaken out of desperation and loss of any other avenue , there are a lot of parallels here , the govt. is full of millionaire/billionaire business types telling people like us to do one.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I see someone has replied….i also believe Dazz posted a copy earlier

I have read the ad. What’s your specific issue with this job advert? The fact a director is needed? the field of lived experience? Both?