Seems the latest amount of Nursing redundancies posted by the Royal College is Nursing is almost 4000.
I'm guessing this will mean big changes.

I think this is the usual inept cycle of boom and bust. I have students panicking about qualifying this year and not having jobs, who started training on the crest of the 'we need more nurses for our new NHS' campaign.

Drug workers have less to fear as it only takes 12 months to train them to NTA minimum, so they have a better chance of finishing their courses before the money runs out. (;-)

When will they realise that for each nurse they lay off now, there is a 4 year lead in time for when they find they need one back? (Recruit, select, train, qualify and get up to speed).

It may not be a total coincidence that these lay offs are occurring at exactly the same time as pay negotiations and the independent review board recommendation of above-inflation pay rises for nurses.

Cynical, moi?

This news is just typical.. for many years now I have been trying to get nurses to realise that their jobs/careers are 'playthings' for all governments to change/adapt/restructure in any ways that they seem fit, irrespective of the rhetorical bull**** before election times etc etc. The world of nursing is changing with the introduction of TAP's, NVQ's etc which are all cheaper than the well trained, experienced nurses of yore. The common denominator is cost and the cheaper the nurse the better, hence the plundering of overseas nurses who think a D grade is a huge pay rise by comparison with their former wages. The quality is more likely to drop because of the standards in training and the so called profession as a whole is weakened... the gradings in 1987/8 did the divide and rule part of the big plan because when it comes to bitching and back stabbing... the nurse is par excellance. My advice for any new nurse is get trained, get as many transferable skills as poss and move careers before you train and gain experience, so you can "increase standards in patient care", "give more back to your profession", "lead the way for others" etc etc etc....... then find out they no longer want specialists in nursing because of cost, so they have a TAP's to do it.... nursing is government plasticine and will be moulded in to what ever they need, when they need it. I make no apologies for my cynacism, nor do I ask for sympathy, it was my decision.... I just advise other's not to make the same one...p.s i also think this issue mentioned has been blown up for sensationalist reporting and is not about clinical delivery staff. My point remains the same tho

Interesting points the figures are more than 4500 now!.
As regards grading being divide and rule now we have AFC which is rather a deja vu experience.
I'm not sure how Hewitt keeps saying job losses won't effect patient care.
I'm not sure we should have ever stopped the Enrolled nurse training as they were at least Nurses.

More up to date figures almost 5000 redundancies.

Todays figures 5323 redundancies.

To reply to Simon's point about the Ms. Hewitt, the post does seem to attract people who know 2/5 of not much about the NHS.......and that is why they accept the job. The demand is unending and the resources finite. So in today's climate you will never do the job "well"-i.e balance the books.

The demand is unending and just for a special treat today we've been given an inflation busting 2.5% pay rise.
Research says that Nurses cannot afford to buy property in most of the UK.

Todays totals approx. 7500 Nurses made redundant.

so what were they all doing then? things that didn't make any contribution to patient care presumably so they won't be missed..........gosh what a clever idea, smart of the government to get rid of all these lazy loafers...........

Catkin,
well the list keeps getting bigger.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/4854540.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4862318.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/4873846.stm
Of course these job losses won't effect patient care.

Todays totals 7803.
This is getting more worrying by the day, these are based on the trusts that are reporting.

more than 9000 now but interesting to see it getting some coverage on TV due to the Royal College of Nursing and UNISON conferences this week, nice to see Hewitt getting a hard time.

As at 20.5.06 12,977 Nurses have been made redundant.

Todays figures 14,022

How many are left?

I'm more interested in how many will be left!.

Just in the interest of balance, this is from NHS briefing document.


“Information gathered from NHS organisations between late March and early May 2006
indicates that few people working in the NHS are losing their jobs and the figures quoted recently in the media are misleading. Where trusts are making reductions in their workforce they are typically doing so by freezing vacancies or reducing the use of agency and temporary staff, as well as redeploying staff in different ways.”

“There are at least 1000 nursing and midwifery jobs on the recruitment site ‘NHS Jobs’ and more than 17,000 nursing posts have been advertised on the site since last September. The number of jobs advertised hasn’t changed in recent months.”

You can read the whole, quite pursuasive, thing on the NHS employers site, it was issued 16th May

http://www.nhsemployers.org/index.cfm/logo/1

The figures i'm quoting are from the Royal college of Nursing's discussion zone.

But what is their evidence base? (to quote myself from my regular exhortations to students)