‘Uber’ style scores for nurses: the public has say on NHS changes
Posted 22 October 2024 - 15:30
Change NHS suggestions include better pay, nursing student loan forgiveness, free training, Uber-like scores for agency nurses and housing for single staff
Student loan forgiveness, free training, Uber-like scores for agency nurses and a maximum body mass index (BMI) for nurses are among suggestions put forward to the government’s national consultation on the future of the NHS.
Hundreds of suggestions were submitted within hours of the consultation launching on 21 October.
It is billed as the ‘biggest national conversation about the future of the NHS since its birth’ and healthcare staff and members of the public will be able to join in and share their views online until the start of next year.
Suggestions for nurses so far include better pay, protected study leave, scrapping university fees, reducing the use of agency staff in favour of more NHS-employed nurses, free housing and travel, and putting senior nurses and matrons in charge of managing patient workflows.
NHS consultation comments include call for more trained nurses on every shift
Suggestions and comments on the consultation website, Change NHS: Help Build a Health Service Fit for the Future, include mandated study time for nurses, a goal of recruiting and retaining NHS nurses instead of using agency nurses, and providing housing for single staff.
Susannah Kipling wrote: ‘We have a dire shortage of nurses, particularly specialists. Yet putative nurses are charged over £9,000 per year for their training, which was free in the past.
‘Surely free training would encourage more people to enter the profession. Nurses are not highly paid, and the accumulation of student debt must discourage potential applicants.’
Trish Chalmers agreed, adding: ‘I trained as a nurse and then a midwife 40 years ago and we were paid a monthly allowance, plus unsociable hours. Not a huge amount but enough. No learning costs. Perhaps nurse and midwifery training needs [to be] reviewed?’
‘Cruel and unsustainable’ plight of nursing students working 12-hour shifts
Rhiannon Levey suggested compensating nursing students for ‘unpaid labour’ undertaken while on clinical placements.
She wrote: ‘The stark reality is that nursing students provide core support to the NHS… Whether we like to admit it or not, student nurses are almost always illegally included in staffing numbers, and many are barely able to make ends meet while at university.
‘I personally know of nursing students working 12-hour night shifts after a full day of lectures, and going straight to placement the next day, in order to maintain their families. It is cruel and unsustainable.’
Conversation about the future of the NHS will 'put staff and patients at the heart of reform'
There is also a suggestion of patients giving agency nurses Uber-like scores, with George Breese saying: ‘I have experienced agency nurses who have lied about their abilities just so they can increase their earning potential, been outright rude to patients and made the whole ward unsafe, but they can still get another shift in another ward or hospital.
‘Hospitals and wards should be able to give a rating after an agency nurse's shift, like you would an Uber driver. This can then link to how much they are going to get paid and will weed out the absolute jokes.’
Having a maximum BMI for nurses as ‘they should be leading by example’ was also proposed, although this post since appears to be taken down.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘We’re launching the biggest national conversation about the future of the NHS, inviting the whole country to share their experiences in order to shape the government’s ten-year health plan and put staff and patients at the heart of reform.’
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