NHS Bureaucracy

[Ascender]

Bit of a rant, but seems to sum up how the government can't even get the simple stuff right. The NHS as we all know is struggling big time and is chronically understaffed. Mrs Mike is now just completing her second year of her nursing degree, a large percentage of which has been practical experience on wards.

9 months ago, she applied to the NHS nursing bank so she could start to do shifts as a care support worker in hospitals and the like. In simple terms, those people are there to do the day to day chores needing done in wards to keep things running, leaving the nurses to do nurse stuff. Her nursing courses to date cover all the necessary experience needed and they're short-staffed, so she could literally walk in to a hospital today and make a difference.

9 months they've been processing the application. She's chased a few times and got no response but was told there was an appointment for her today to go and sign some forms, pick up her uniform and then she could start working. Except the appointment today in Edinburgh was only to collect a pre-signed form, which then allows her to make another in-person appointment next week to get her photo taken to apply for a pass. And she then needs to make a separate appointment in Edinburgh to collect a uniform (limited hours only obviously).

How on earth can they hope to fix the big stuff when they can't even get simple stuff like this done in a reasonable amount of time? Apart from the short-staffing thing, what if she needed the job for the money? And asking people to get to appointments to pick up pre-printed forms which could be emailed? Mind-boggling.

Rant over.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Because public sector. Madness isn't it?

[DeskJockey]

If you think the private sector is much better, you're in for a surprise.

[Swervin_Mervin]

If you think the private sector is much better, you're in for a surprise.

Really? I'm not specifically referring to public sector healthcare - just publoc sector anything. Anyone who has only ever worked in the private sector but in a role that very regularly deals with the public sector tends to have the same view.

[DeskJockey]

I've worked on both sides, and know people on both sides. The red tape may differ, but any large organisation will develop its own quirks, idiosyncrasies and downright stupid ways of doing things. It is isn't about public or private, it is about size and scale.

[duncs500]

If you think the private sector is much better, you're in for a surprise.

Really? I'm not specifically referring to public sector healthcare - just publoc sector anything. Anyone who has only ever worked in the private sector but in a role that very regularly deals with the public sector tends to have the same view.

I've spent my whole career working in and around the public sector and its employees, my experience is that the public sector is a mess of waste, bureaucracy, and "can't do" attitudes. I think anyone who even has to deal with them as a 'customer' can see that on a daily basis.

The notable exceptions in the private sector are some formerly public organisations that were privatised, they're better, but a lot of the old public sector attitudes remain IME.

[McSwede]

If you think the private sector is much better, you're in for a surprise.

Really? I'm not specifically referring to public sector healthcare - just publoc sector anything. Anyone who has only ever worked in the private sector but in a role that very regularly deals with the public sector tends to have the same view.

I've spent my whole career working in and around the public sector and its employees, my experience is that the public sector is a mess of waste, bureaucracy, and "can't do" attitudes. I think anyone who even has to deal with them as a 'customer' can see that on a daily basis.

The notable exceptions in the private sector are some formally public organisations that were privatised, they're better, but a lot of the old public sector attitudes remain IME.

I have to agree. The public sector is a big customer for me and they always appear to be feckelss, inefficient and wasteful. Staff take liberties because their employers are frightened of upsetting them.

Private companies that run like that would go out of business. There's no wonder that the NHS and similar organisations are always fucked. They're just badly run and propped up by the likes of nurses who work hard for inadequate remuneration. Pump more money in and more money gets wasted.

How on earth any government can fix it I do not know, especially with the modern short termism in politics.

Turning the bloody thermostats down a notch or two would save millions as their properties are always set to sub-tropical.

[duncs500]

There just doesn't appear to be many incentives to employees buying in to efficiency opportunities.

Funnily enough I was catching up a neighbour at the weekend who is a software developer of some kind and been working for the NHS, some of the stories he was telling were shocking. In one example he developed a bit of software for one trust that turned out to be really useful, and when it was proposed that this could be shared with the other trusts, the trust in question refused and each individual trust basically went about developing their own version.

[Sundayjumper]

How on earth can they hope to fix the big stuff when they can't even get simple stuff like this done in a reasonable amount of time?

I'm currently on day 5 of a new role with a Civil Service client. They have provided a laptop but I don't have a login for it, or an email account, or any way to access the network. Simple stuff you'd think. Nope.

Oh, and my manager is leaving this Friday with no replacement lined up, and the one other person in my immediate team is on holiday next week & the week after. So I'm totally on my own for two weeks. Quite possibly without access to anything.

[McSwede]

How on earth can they hope to fix the big stuff when they can't even get simple stuff like this done in a reasonable amount of time?

I'm currently on day 5 of a new role with a Civil Service client. They have provided a laptop but I don't have a login for it, or an email account, or any way to access the network. Simple stuff you'd think. Nope.

Oh, and my manager is leaving this Friday with no replacement lined up, and the one other person in my immediate team is on holiday next week & the week after. So I'm totally on my own for two weeks. Quite possibly without access to anything.

Fuckwittery on an epic scale is a daily occurrence for these organisations. Then they say that they are underfunded

[Sundayjumper]

Although, to add an "exception-proves-the-rule", I worked for the Office for National Statistics for a couple of years and they had their s**t together. Laptop provided in advance, access set up, induction that was useful and not dragged out unnecessarily*. I was there when COVID kicked in and we went into lockdown for the first time and everyone suddenly had to work from home. Everything functioned perfectly. Best place I've ever worked.

Current place, over two years later, I was able to join a Teams meeting yesterday with about 15 people but *nobody* had their camera on as the network can't cope, and there's still advice in place that when WFH you should always work offline where possible to reduce load on the network.


* Another place I worked, induction was a solid 1½ days.

[ZedLeg]

I think it's the case of an organisation that's been running for a long time without having a bottom up overhaul.

Departments patch fix problems and add new services/apps on top of old ones until the whole thing is a precariously stacked pile of contradictions. You see this in both private and public sector places.

[Ascender]

I thought with everything that had happened these last couple of years there would have been some sort of improvements made to this specific sort of thing - it doesn't take a genius to work out that in a staff shortage, they could fast-track the approval of hundreds of student nurses in to this sort of role (they've already had to do the same mandatory training and ID checks etc in order to do their placements at hospitals). Its bizarre.

[Gavin]

I think it's the case of an organisation that's been running for a long time without having a bottom up overhaul.

Departments patch fix problems and add new services/apps on top of old ones until the whole thing is a precariously stacked pile of contradictions. You see this in both private and public sector places.

Certainly true of my work. Systems designed years ago to work with specific pensions and now, with newer pensions and variables it falls over.... a LOT. Having said that simple changes would save us hours per week and offering the suggestions gets a nice thank you but little change so far, Maybe have to get a few rungs up to make a bigger difference.

[Ascender]

Update... the number you need to call to make an appointment to get your uniform isn't manned and doesn't have an answering machine on it . A legit (non Benny Hill style) nurse's uniform is still no closer to being found and so another week goes by!