h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We lose many nurses to agencies from the US and as a result we recruit from countries which cannot afford to pay what the nurses can earn here.
The trouble is that we are leaving some countries in the third world chronically short of trained medical staff.
The situation cannot continue in the long term ~ we must pay our nurses a decent wage for performing a job which would be beyond most of us.
Then more nurses would be willing to stay with the NHS.

i agree with you in principle, however, i know a few nurses, including my sister-in-law, who works through an agency, and her wages are in fact lower than those on the NHS.

I can't see how it could be otherwise. If a nurse is employed by an agency, they are getting a cut too. For them to pay the nurses more than they would get in the NHS they'd need to be running at a loss.

I dont think banning agencies is the answer, making nurses wages and benefits more appealing should move them away from the agencies (who are after all only in it for profit)

It surely would be better to give nurses even a 15-20% pay rise than pay up to and over 100% profit to an agency.

Actually after thinking about it, i believe there must be some alterior motive here. It must have something to do with making the figures look good (Maybe agency staff are classed as temporary or something).

The reason i say this is that my job involves sub contract work within council offices in London. I have had many conversations with members of staff and i recall on with a lady in a large Civic Centre. There must be about 1000-1500 members of staff in this particular centre, and i remember being astounded when she quoted that 75% of her department (approx 100 staff) were agency workers. Many of them had actually worked directly for the council, but had been made redundant and then re employed through the angencies.

I've always loved a good conspiracy theory.

Temperary and agency staff always have far fewer rights ~ sick benefit,pensions,holiday leave etc and there are no problems with redundancy when your budget doesn't balance and you need to cull the staff ~ just tell the agency not to send anyone.

Kind of a side issue but this topic brought up the way the last Tory government treated public services ~ i agree they did immeasureable damage but we are at the end of Labour's second term in office.
When exactly does everything cease to be the fault of the oft repeated "18 years of Tory misrule" and become the responsibility of the current government?

That the NHS pays agencies huge sums to pay nurses more than the NHS would was entirely predictable when the last Tory government made it an area where agencies could get involved on the grounds that it gave people more 'choice'.

Just as the filth in the wards was entirely predictable when the last Tory government ended centasrlised contarcting of cleaning and decided to farm it out to agencies, which conversely drove the prices down and resulted in cleaners living in near poverty.

Read Polly Toynbee's excellent 'Hard Work' for further discussion of the point about cleaning staff.

The NHS is not *just* about nurses, you know


I think visitors have to take some responsibility for the cleanliness of hospitals. The one where I work is cleaned to within an inch of its life every night. Then come the morning the visitors, outpatients etc. arrive. They spit everywhere, throw litter willy nilly and generally leave one hell of a mess behind. What real right do people have to complain about the cleanliness of hospitals when they do things in the public areas that they'd never dream of doing at home?

Alcohol hand rubs are provided at the entrance to every ward for visitors, nurses and other health professionals to use as they enter. To date, the only people that I've seen use them are nurses and doctors. Are nurses the only ones that can spread MRSA? I don't think so.

I don't think anyones suggesting thast in actuallity the NHS is only about nurses.

I think whats being reflected by this thread is the fact that as far as politicians are concerned it only consists of Nurses and Doctors. And managers. The vital support network such as people like yourself is something that doesn't impinge on them.

Just as the criminal justice system in this country only consists of policemen and judges, if you believe politicians.

SLG, I don't know what cleaning staff retention rates are like in your part of the world. Well down here if it wasn't for the immigrant labour, some (many?) probably illegal, then the hospital just wouldn't get cleaned.

These folk, they do fantastic job for very little money and we're very grateful to them.

it's not just hospitals...

No buildings in London at all would be cleaned if it was our immigrant workforce...

Including I'd guess Tory central office...

And to link issues - how many of them are working on the black economy ? In fact to drag in a third issue I believe that the 'illegal immigrant' who killed Constable Oakes had been working as a binman - supplied by an agency.

Just for our peace of mind, would you be able to provide a back-up to that belief, McKay?

Ta.

Peace of mind?

I'd bet a considerable amount of money on it.

We want low council tax - we employ people on minimum wage to collect the bins - we outsource recruitment - we live with the consequences.

Hmm, I can see the Eds point.

There's a world of difference between saying 'I believe agencies regualrly employ illegal immigrants' to 'I believe a convicted murderer and terrorist who was also an illehgal immigrant was being employed by an agency.'

"are you thinking what we're thinking" NO!

Having a supposedly rhetorical question as the campaign slogan is not the brightest idea - it is asking for the "wrong" response.

I liked the legalise cannabis parties response when they changed one of the posters to read "are you smoking what i'm smoking"

I think the attack on illegal immigrants based on the recent events was foolish by the conservatives.

That particular claim was made yesterday on Radio 5 - but I forget who said it - will try to find a link.