ckn

A continuation of this debacle. I submitted my form right on time at midday, within 20 minutes I received an email saying (paraphrased) "sorry, we cannot accept or review your form until next Friday as we require you to wait until four weeks is up and there is zero chance of you getting another NHS job before the expiry of those four weeks of you being unemployed." Which is a wildly different story to the one I got previously. A whole afternoon of blunt conversations that has just finished with me getting a written commitment that I'd met all the conditions for payment and that if I just submit the form again next Friday I'll get paid. The very nice HR lady dealing with it also agreed to pay it as an exception rather than me having to wait until end-August or even end-September. At this time, I'm so ill-minded towards the NHS that I would go out of my way to recommend that people actively avoid it as a career if they value any sort of positive working environment.

I have almost all of my documents on Microsoft's OneDrive. I then have that offline synching with my laptop, PC and my home server, the home server then also keeps a read-only copy of files on a home NAS box. It means I can get my documents anywhere with a network connection but also have offline copies on my main machines. It also means that if I ever get one of those ransomware hits then I just wipe the machines affected, start again and restore from the read-only copies, even if it hits the OneDrive copies. But then, I'm a paranoid sort who doesn't really trust technical kit not to lose my data...

That's a good way to learn the importance of backups!

Yep, they made me compulsorily redundant when they closed down my entire service. I managed to find jobs for most of my staff but a few joined me in the pile. It's the modern NHS. The bureaucracy is blinding and bitter in its desire to just remove any joy from NHS workers. I posted earlier in this thread the degrading treatment those of my staff who are compulsorily redundant will have to endure before their notice ends, it really just rubs in "FAILURE".

Finished. The thing that REALLY gets me about this is that people who are having to work their notice, unlike me who agreed to leave without notice, is that they'll have to keep this up for four months if they can't get a job in the NHS. What a fantastic way to rub in failure. Seriously, even those who secure a non-NHS job have to do this sodding thing to get their redundancy money to prove they've tried hard to get a NHS one and reduce the cost to the NHS

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Abso-***ing-lutely. I'm utterly burned out after fighting for three months to try to save the jobs of far too many good people who worked for me. I had it made clear to me that I'd have to justify taking holiday between 1st July and 28th July, even though I'm not an employee any longer, as I should be looking to minimise the risk of the NHS having to pay out.

I really can't get over this one section of a ten section form where I'm expected to give a long narrative: I genuinely am expected to give a daily diary of what I've done to minimise the NHS's problem and I'm not allowed to see the criteria that I'm being judged on.

It's much the same with nurses. I know one hospital Trust that's not impressed that "only" 87% of nurses regularly (once per two weeks or more) take extra shifts and is actively taking measures to increase that number. One extra shift per week realistically means a 56-ish hour week and isn't guaranteed to be in your sleep pattern for shifts. That's not a public figure for that Trust but here's one that is at Gloucester Hospitals, see page 19 of this PDF, paragraph starting "Utilisation" where they talk about 84% of nurses doing regular extra shifts as "relatively low". That can't continue There's a weird obsession in the public sector these days of reducing the absolute number of employees then trying to fill the gap with far more expensive bank staff or just getting existing staff to work longer hours (albeit on overtime rates).

(Crudely disguised foul language below, I really do apologise but this needs to be said...) Tonight's "fun" has been filling in a form for the NHS justifying why I should be paid my redundancy money. I have to show that I've looked hard for NHS jobs and made myself available for NHS jobs since I left, including any job that would have reset my working clock to zero and given me a pay cut. That'll be assessed by someone I don't know on subjective grounds that I am not allowed to see and they'll make the decision whether I'm worthy of being paid MY ****ING REDUNDANCY MONEY THAT THEY ****ING WELL OWE ME. If they decide I'm not worthy then I have to sue them at an Employment Tribunal where I'll have to indemnify them against their costs for if I lose as well as pay £390 to actually get the Tribunal to hear my claim. I'm rapidly losing any sentiment towards the NHS's bureaucracy over how they're treating me and others who have been made redundant. It's not our ****ing fault that the NHS is being cut so stop treating us like ****ing criminals for wanting to get the money that they ****ing well owe us.

I know what you mean. I was asked to go into an interim role covering a NHS senior managerial role for six months, very good pay but it was a 3 hour commute each way each day plus the management had a nasty reputation and that was the very good reason they couldn't get permanent people to work there. It'd be soul destroying having to do that commute (train then two London public transport journeys) just to have to work in a toxic office. I do have one opportunity I'm really hoping for that's a bit out of my comfort zone in terms of the environment, it's a bit lower pay than I get now and still London (but without any ongoing journey and only a 5 minute walk) but it fills virtually every bracket I want in a job: great reputation as a company, very socially focussed, and I'd be able to see a massive benefit to my work to people who normally don't get much of a chance at work. I'm honest with myself that I'm no better than 50/50 at getting it but I would dearly like a chance to prove myself at it. It really would be nice to settle into a nice company for a while. I wouldn't go back to contract work unless things got desperate, that was just soul destroying. I still hold out hope for another NHS job but they're a bit scarce for the type and scale of work I do.

The great British public will happily ignore any manner of nasty character or incompetence as long as it's packaged in an amusing manner, be it Rees-Mogg with his decades out of touch attitude, Boris with his foppish joviality or even Corbyn with his bumbling old rebel attitude.

David Davis is confused why the EU don't understand that "Brexit means Brexit" and that's surely all they need to know about what Britain wants to get out of any deal.

An agency called me asking me if I wanted to start shift work as a nurse through their bank system. Apparently everyone in the NHS who isn't a doctor is a nurse. I had to wonder if the recruitment agent was moonlighting in between attending primary school, she sounded about 8-9 year old. I was polite in rejecting this offer but I think she thought I was lying about my reasons for not wanting to register with them as a nurse or even give her my nursing registration number...

This is definitely the right thread for this one: Need a wheelchair? Pay for it yourself. This isn't just powered wheelchairs. There's a WAITING LIST for standard permanent wheelchairs in some areas. The story in there of people who can't use manual wheelchairs but are only offered £140 towards the £2000 cost of powered ones really isn't uncommon. THAT's the country the Tories think we ought to have: if you can't afford it then you can't have it, regardless of your needs. Edit: The local commissioners are being blamed but they simply don't have the money grants to do anything better. The new personal budget scheme won't mean more money, the same overall wheelchair budget there, it will now be more variable giving the commissioners more power to help, That said, using that power to give one £2000 wheelchair means 14 other people who won't even get the £140 because the money has been spent.