How do you think reforms will affect NHS provision?

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Matt

Opinions surrounding the implications and concerns about government proposals for our NHS from the current Conservative/Lib Dem government swing from support to abhorrence.

We are looking at a real culture shift from socialised and public health care to one partially removed from government control that allows for more privatised elements (this means that more private companies will be able to provide parts of NHS services, rather than the amount allowed now.)

They also propose to change the way the NHS is administrated. Instead of today’s PCT’s, they propose we move to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs).

For some reason, CCGs are going to be allowed to choose where their patients come from. Instead of geographical allocation (for example, Gloucestershire’s PCT administrates health care for Gloucestershire), CCGs will be able to build a patient list out of people who are potentially geographically separate. They also will choose who provides which services to their area’s public health care providers.

These changes have sparked two concerns.

First, Professor Allyson Pollock of Queen Mary, University of London, thinks that changing the way patient lists are made will make it harder to tell who’s being helped and what help they need.

She is worried that the change in patient list organisation is badly-defined and going to harm data collection and understanding.

She also predicts that it will be harder to ensure proper coverage and fair provision and that figures for long-term bed management and resource provision will also be impeded.

Secondly, a TUC-funded research group has noted that nearly half of the CCG groups they studied have many doctors that could make more money if their companies are chosen to provide health care services for the CCGs that they work for. Currently, 22 out of the 50 studied had substantial external financial interests in private health-care provision.

This sparks concerns that NHS provision may start to be affected by personal interest for making money, rather than what’s best for the patients and the NHS itself.

What do you think? Do you worry these things will change your NHS for the worse? Maybe you think it’s only natural that doctors would work with other health companies and this isn’t an issue? If you want to read more and have a subscription, you can access the studies at www.bmj.com

Learning disability nursing – make a positive choice…..

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Matt

I met Graham at the Learning Disability event, Positive Choices, last year. He’s full of enthusiasm and, having spent a large part of his working career in a commercial environment before switching careers, he’s a great spokesperson for how working in LD can really change your life.

Here, in a video he’s put together, he’s demonstrating how, in turn, we can make a difference to someone’s life – by making a positive choice…

Learning disability nursing - make a positive choice

Graham Burrell's video about learning disability nursing

A care home for all seasons

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Matt

Guy Hands, who runs the equity firm Terra Firma, has just spent something around £800m for the care homes group, Four Seasons. By the sounds of it, and I’m no acquisitions expert, Guy Hands is keen to use this big story to restore his reputation.

Hopefully, he’ll also be keen to ensure the ongoing care for his 24,000 residents. It would seem he’s been able to purchase it for a snip (it was worth £1.4bn six years ago). And that would give hope that we’re not going to see assets sold. Indeed, Terra Firma has said that they’ll invest and grow Four Seasons and deliver “high-quality care and peace of mind for residents”.

In February, Guy Hands announced that he’s in investment through his love of “transforming businesses, not just making making”.

But you could forgive the industry for a little anxiety. Where heavy investment is made, typically, cuts sometimes follow. And recent history makes everyone think of how poorly steered Southern Cross was by its previous owners.

Notwithstanding all of that, Terra Firma will be working hard to make sure it transforms more profit from this venture than it did in it’s foray into the music industry where it lost over £3m and a good slice of its reputation. And profit and good care are not the easiest bed-fellows.

Home Managers – be aware of the guidelines regarding qualifications

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Matt

We had a call last week. It was from a very annoyed and despairing home manager. She’s extremely well qualified, but is being told that because she doesn’t have the correct paperwork she won’t be able to get a home manager’s job.

We published a long article about this on our sister site, socialcare.co.uk, so browse there for the full story (it’s here).

We’d love to hear from other people who have found themselves in the same situation. The issue is, it turns out, that you ARE employable, even without a Level 5 Diploma. You are even employable without the qualifications it has superceded: the RMA (Registered Managers Award) and the NVQ 4 ‘Leadership and Management for Care Services’.

So long as your potential employer has evidence from you of competence and experience, and so long as they then enrol you on a Diploma course within 3 months, and you complete it within 2 years, you’re all working within the guidelines set by the CQC and Skills For Care.

What is concerning is if there are any recruiting employers out there who are unaware of this. It seems that there might be – the candidate who called us last week is evidence of this.

So we’d love to hear from jobseeking care and home managers, as well as recruiters about this issue. We’re happy to report our findings back to the CQC and Skills For Care.

Study shows home births are more ‘cost effective’

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Matt

A study published in the British Medical Journal yesterday found that planned births at home as opposed to in hospital can be more cost effective for women at low risk of complication, in particular women who have given birth before.

Over a two year period the study looked at just over 64,000 low-risk women in four planned birth locations – at home, in a freestanding midwifery unit, in a midwifery unit attached to a hospital (alongside midwifery unit) and in an obstetric unit. Unit overheads and staffing costs were key components of the final mean cost figure per planned birth, which are £1066, £1435, £1461, and £1631 for births planned at home, in freestanding midwifery units, in alongside midwifery units, and in obstetric units, respectively.

The study also showed that while women who had given birth previously could give birth at home with no increased level of risk, women giving birth to their first baby had an increased risk factor by planning a home birth. However, home births in both cases still represented the lowest mean cost.

Follow the link to BMJ.com to read the study in full.

Thanks Sarah, and good luck!

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Matt

When Sarah (Gill) started working for Niche Jobs Ltd four years ago, Nurses.co.uk was in its infancy and very much unexplored as an idea. We listed a few jobs and that was about it. We didn’t use Twitter or Facebook and we didn’t communicate with our audience via a blog.

Sarah changed that for us and we’re really thankful. So, now she’s leaving, we’d like to wish her all the best, and do that through the blog that she started and has contributed to up until now.

Her time with us has seen a really amazing development in the use of social communication tools on the web. Sure, she kicked off our conversation with our nursing and job seeking audience through a more traditional method: a monthly newsletter, but now there are a whole host of ways she engages with our jobseekers.

Within a year we had a Facebook page and a Twitter account, but the best aspect of her use of social media is not the tools she’s used to enable her to communicate – WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, Hootsuite – but the way she’s used them.

Where others get it wrong and simply broadcast messages, Sarah’s developed a rapport. We’ve got to know an otherwise veiled audience. Through Facebook and Twitter we’ve met people who we wouldn’t otherwise have known. And many of them have written for us, or suggested we attend particular events, partnered with us and generally helped us become more than simply a jobs board. It’s given us a personality.

I’ve learned that there’s no trickery, or new gimmick, or up-your-sleeve magic required to running a good web site. It always boils down to the same things that have made the good publications successful through time: honest communication.

Of course, now Sarah’s leaving we’ll attempt to keep up the good work. We’ll continue to fashion our online persona. And I want that persona to be as honest an extension of our company as is possible through technology.

As for Sarah, we’re sure she’ll continue to do great things and I hope you’ll join us in wishing her all the best!

Prepare to be a student nurse!

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Matt

We were having a discussion on the Nurses.co.uk Facebook page about the advice qualified nurses wish they had been given when they were students. We had a fair few responses so I’ve put them into an article for you here – How to prepare for life as a student nurse as well as few other points about finance, books and shoes.

The majority commented that the best of advice is to ask questions, of both staff and patients whenever you need to. Every nurse and midwife was once where you are now, learning and finding their feet. Ultimately patient safety and your safety are the key concerns so unless you are absolutely confident with what you’re doing, you should be asking questions.

Another common theme is that nursing is not just a job it’s a way of life. You have to be passionate about what you do in order to provide the best care and have a rewarding career. Whichever branch of nursing you’re studying, I’m sure at some point you will find the training difficult, and it’s the passion you have for caring for others that will help you overcome those tough times.

The most difficult subject to cover concerns bullying, and it is an issued raised by someone in the discussion. No one, whether student or staff member, should have to put up with bullying so the best advice is to read your university handbook and find out the procedure for handling it. You may feel insecure about reporting bullying but you have to speak up for yourself and protect your learning experience. Bullying doesn’t happen to everyone, and I’m sure there are plenty of nurses and midwives who have never suffered it, but just in case it’s best to know who your support network are and where to communicate your concerns.

Above all advice, the best sentiment is to simply enjoy it! The years you spend training will fly by and before you know it you will be qualified and managing your own caseload of patients. Even then, as a newly qualified nurse you won’t know everything and you will still need to ask questions.

How to prioritise your nursing CV with compelling information

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Matt

As you progress through your nursing career your CV will become longer as your experience develops. You will have your current job and responsibilities, previous jobs and responsibilities as well as your professional development achievements, all of which can easily take up at least 2 sides of A4. So how do you condense all of this information into an eye catching but informative CV that will show an employer you’re perfect for their job?

In a study released today, recruiters spend just six seconds scanning your CV to decide if you are a potential match for the job! The study showed that almost 4.8 of those six seconds are spent looking at the following:

name
current title & employer
previous title & employer
previous start and end dates
current start and end dates
education

As you can see from the list a recruiter is primarily interested in your current job and previous employment experience, as well as your education. While this study was not specifically related to the healthcare or nursing sectors, I think it’s easy to understand the trend that’s being illustrated here, which is that you have a minimal amount of time to show a recruiter that you have both the experience and education to fulfill the position.

So how do you condense down a career’s worth of experience into a maximum of 2 sides of A4 paper to make a CV that will catch a recruiter’s eye? The answer is there is no simple answer, nor is there one solution that will suit everyone but there several points you can consider.

1. Put your current job title, employer and employment dates at the top of your CV – directly underneath your name and contact details. If you’re applying for a job that’s similar to your currently one or a similar role at a higher level, then the fact that you’re already working in a related job will work in your favour. Go into detail about the responsibilities you manage and whether you have expanded or developed the role in any way.

2. Continue your employment history in reverse chronological order from there onwards (most recent first). If you have a nursing career history that is several jobs long, your most recent jobs are going to be of most interest to a recruiter. A recruiter will value clear, informative lists of responsibilities, competencies and accomplishments, so you can add in professional development achievements relevant to the role if you like.

3. Don’t give too much space over to your education history unless it is relevant. First and foremost you are a nurse, so the professional development achievements you have will probably supersede your original nursing qualification. That’s not to say you should omit details of your nursing course, you definitely shouldn’t, but there’s probably not a great deal of requirement for lots of words about every module you studied and every placement you undertook. Only include that level of detail if it’s directly relevant to the job you’re going for now.

4. Don’t include too much detail about any past jobs before you became a nurse. Of course you can mention your previous jobs if you feel they are relevant and if they help a recruiter to understand your history, but don’t go into too much detail about them. Your nursing career probably began when you became a student nurse, so anything before that is less significant and by reducing the priority given to it you can create space for the facts that are important.

5. Optimise the layout for maximum effect and visual appeal. This doesn’t mean add lots of colour or images (I say this just in case.. because we have seen it done!), it means make the layout inviting to the eye. Use bullet points and lists instead of sentences where possible and ensure there is enough white space around each section to give the reader a clear idea of what they are looking at. Solid paragraphs of text can be very off putting for a reader that is only scanning your CV.

If you can write your CV with a recruiter in mind, you are more likely to be successful with your job application. Think about the questions they will be asking as they read your CV, and do your best to answer them as you go. As always, you can find all current nursing vacancies on Nurses.co.uk.

A career as an Operating Department Practitioner

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Matt

If you’re looking for a new career in healthcare or want to progress from a healthcare assistant role into a more specialist career, then why not consider the role of Operating Department Practitioner.

Training as an ODP requires full time attendance on an HPC approved course, which will last either 3 or 3 years depending of the level of qualification. You complete 40% of the course studying theory work, and the other 60% is spent out on placement in a surgical environment.

All applications for ODP courses are made through UCAS, but you have to wait until the next round of applications start in September. In the mean time, you can work on your personal statement and ensuring you have done as much research as possible into the role of the ODP. Your personal statement is a key part of your UCAS application, it’s the first real insight the admissions officer gets into who you are and why you want to become an ODP.

To view the article in full and find out more about training to become an ODP, follow this link to How to become an Operating Department Practitioner

Immigration changes will see staff from overseas refused right to settle

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Matt

The proposed changes to immigration policy, due to come into effect in 2016, could see nurses and care assistants currently working in the UK, but originally from outside the EU, refused the right to settle here. Nurses from outside the EU must earn over £35,000 / yr and Care Assistants must earn over £7.02 / hr in order to remain in the UK when these changes come into force.

The RCN estimates that nearly half of all nurses from overseas currently working in the NHS could be forced to leave when these changes are implemented, and that 20,000 HCAs in London alone will also be affected. Based on a 37.5 hour week, a care assistant would need to earn £13,689 per annum (2012/13) in order to be granted leave to remain, which is the kind of salary level associated with a senior care assistant position. A nurse earning the salary stated would need to be, at the very minimum, working full time on pay point 30 in band 7. There are currently only 231 nursing jobs on the NHS jobs website in band 7, of which the majority are full time positions.

The RCN are currently consulting various stakeholders to ascertain whether they should call for a judicial review of the situation.