Hundreds of foreign nurses on the way to Leicester

[MikeyT]

Hopefully they aren't all plain and simple.

[Strokes]

My missus is a nurse, its a great job and they are well looked after, I'm just suprised they don't offer experienced health care assistants a fast track into nursing. Most of them want to be nurses and would require less hands on training and would be easier to replace.

[Bellend Sebastian]

I reckon they'll all look like Penelope Cruz and it'll turn out just fine.

I'm so convinced of this I'm hoping I develop a serious illness

[Jon the Hat]

My missus is a nurse, its a great job and they are well looked after, I'm just suprised they don't offer experienced health care assistants a fast track into nursing. Most of them want to be nurses and would require less hands on training and would be easier to replace.

 

Mostly because being a HCA teaches you how to do basic care, and that is not on the nursing curriculum?

[Guest Col city fan]

My missus is a nurse, its a great job and they are well looked after, I'm just suprised they don't offer experienced health care assistants a fast track into nursing. Most of them want to be nurses and would require less hands on training and would be easier to replace.

They used to.

HCSW's could apply to enter Nursing training with a quota each year.

This stopped some time ago due to (you guessed it) money..

[Guest Col city fan]

Mostly because being a HCA teaches you how to do basic care, and that is not on the nursing curriculum?

That's bollox. Of course basic clinical skills are in the Nursing curriculum.

[SystonFox]

I work at the LGH and can categorically say, hand on heart that we need a lot more nurses there.

What do you do and where?

Yes we do need more nurses in all 3 Leics hospitals

[Zingari]

I reckon they'll all look like Penelope Cruz and it'll turn out just fine.

I'm so convinced of this I'm hoping I develop a serious illness

I'm of the same opinion , but i think we're already suffering with an illness and it's called "hyperoptimisticitis" .

I doubt if we'll get bed baths and that during our treatment though  

[Jon the Hat]

That's bollox. Of course basic clinical skills are in the Nursing curriculum.

 

You really think you would reduce the amount of study time for having worked as an HCA?  For how long?  Do you have to be a good HCA?  Would you need to have done some NVQ additional training or what?  Does it make you a better candidate than someone who have proven they are academically capable of completing the degree course?  All important questions to be answered before you create some fast track scheme.

[Zingari]

You really think you would reduce the amount of study time for having worked as an HCA?  For how long?  Do you have to be a good HCA?  Would you need to have done some NVQ additional training or what?  Does it make you a better candidate than someone who have proven they are academically capable of completing the degree course?  All important questions to be answered before you create some fast track scheme.

I'm not sure but I  think the idea is more like a return to the time when we had SEN's and SRN 's

The SEN's would do most of the lower skill requirement tasks 

[davieG]

If money / cuts are not the cause then the management that allowed the situation of being 400, yes 400 nurses short need sacking. But then they'd probably get some massive undeserved payoff.

[Jon the Hat]

400 sounds like a lot, but you might be talking about adding one nurse for one shift per ward per day.  Not always immediately obvious without looking at it.

[davieG]

400 sounds like a lot, but you might be talking about adding one nurse for one shift per ward per day.  Not always immediately obvious without looking at it.

But isn't that what the management are paid to monitor and respond too before it becomes a major problem, which this clearly is otherwise we wouldn't need to be recruiting 400 in panic mode. 

[MooseBreath]

Where are you getting the "panic mode" from? I would be the last person to be surprised by staggering incompetence in the public sector, but I don't sense any particular urgency in the article, seems more that ordinary levels of staff turnover combined with a lack of British nurses coming through will necessitate a need to bring in 300 foreign nurses over an undefined near-future time period.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

Most nurses in Leicester are foreign anyway, who cares so long as they are qualified and do a good job.

That's the key factor. as many have a far lower standard of training, and some cannot even speak English.

Some six or seven years ago I read an article in the Observer newspaper, that there were more than 20,000 British nurses, fully trained, that could not get jobs in their field. Whatever happened to them?

I find this situation appalling, in this day and age. I know the private sector has taken many nurses and doctors away, but surely not that many?

We appear to be gradually eroding our standards of care, as this, like Davie G states, has been happening for many years, without a remedy being found.

[Harry - LCFC]

The fact that more people need care surely plays a part too.