A THIRD of healthcare workers say they would urge their children not to follow a career in medicine – threatening a further staffing crisis for the NHS in the future.
Thirty-two per cent of health staff surveyed said they would not encourage their children to join the profession – compared to just a fifth (21%) of the general public who would steer their kids away from a career in health.
Low pay, uncaring bosses and long hours were all cited by health workers as being the worst aspects of the job, according to specialist nursing and healthcare jobsite jobmedic.co.uk
A quarter (25%) of healthcare workers surveyed say they are considering leaving the profession.
Midwife Charlotte Grant, 27, said: “To discover that health workers would not encourage their children to join their profession is not only sad, it is a huge cause for concern for the NHS in the future.
“The NHS is already suffering from lack of staff and the health of the nation depends on people wanting to join the NHS.
“So it is worrying that healthcare professionals – and especially nurses – do not feel they can encourage their children to follow in their footsteps because of low pay and challenging conditions.”
Two-thirds (63%) of nurses say they feel the public is not aware of the challenges they encounter on the wards on a daily basis and one in five (42%) feel unappreciated by society.
Nurses surveyed say low pay (63%), feeling undervalued by NHS management (64%) and long hours (55%) are the biggest challenges they face.
And only half (48%) of nurses said they would still choose the same job if they were starting out on their careers today.
Half (52%) of those who would not join nursing now say it is because they are overworked, 49% say they feel undervalued by management and 46% feel unappreciated by the public.
Dominic Flageul, head of jobmedic.co.uk. commented “Those are really worrying stats and coupled with the effects of Brexit that caused a swing from positive to negative migration of EU nurses and the abolition of bursaries that caused a drop of 1/3 of applications for nursing degrees create a perfect storm for the future recruitment needs of the NHS”.
However the vast majority (88%) of Scots surveyed say they have been impressed by the NHS when using its services and 63% say they believe nurses ARE appreciated by society.
Adults in Scotland believe nurses’ biggest challenges are long hours (77%), being undervalued by management (71%), low pay (58%), patient resentment (30%) and lack of training (32%).
People believe that nurses’ working lives would be improved by better shift patterns (61%), free training (61%) and pay rises (56%).
Almost seven in ten (68%) believe healthcare workers always do what they can to help and nearly half (48%) believe they are passionate about their work.
And both healthcare professionals and the public say the NHS’ top 5 priorities should be employing more nurses and doctors, better pay, more hospital beds, upgrading equipment and investing in clinical research.
Nearly half (48%) of people surveyed in Scotland say they would willingly pay more tax to swell the NHS’ coffers, with 16% willing to pay 2-3% more in tax.
Ms Grant said: “There are ways to cope with the harsh NHS working conditions I struggled with during my midwifery career.
“For example I launched the staff well-being group at my trust. I also recently organised yoga for midwives and have organised discounted massages for the upcoming months.
“Life in the healthcare profession is tough – of course it is – but I would urge young people to think carefully about a career in health and to think of all the ways in which they can help other people in their fight back to health.”
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