Blog: Mentoring matters more than ever for nurses

Words: Stuart Tuckwood, national officer for nursing

As the NHS battles to reduce waiting lists and meet escalating demands, workplace stresses remain intense for staff. While there has been an increase in the number of nurses and healthcare assistants, domestically and from overseas, this does bring big challenges for teams in terms of the mix of skills.

UNISON, Nursing Times and the Florence Nightingale Foundation surveyed over 2,000 nurses for their views on preceptorship (mentoring) programmes. The results are encouraging and suggest big strides have been made in support for newly registered nurses.

However, there remain significant obstacles to ensuring all staff can access these high-quality programmes. Our earlier 2022 survey found a broad consensus on the importance of preceptorship, but that too few nurses were getting the right support when they qualified.

Survey results

There has been significant work trying to improve preceptorship in all parts of the UK since then and the latest survey results suggest this investment has paid dividends. The percentage of newly registered nurses who were offered a preceptorship in their first jobs is now at 93%, up from 83% in 2022.

Encouragingly, more than four in ten (45%) were likely to say their preceptorship was excellent, up from just over a fifth (23%) two years ago. Another positive development is the amount of protected time nurses have been given for their preceptorship.

In 2022, just under a third (32%) said they were given sufficient time, compared to three-fifths (59%) this year. The awareness of the importance of preceptorship has also grown. Four-fifths (81%) of nursing students now say they expect a preceptorship programme on qualifying, up from 62% in 2022.

But it’s not yet time to declare mission accomplished. Alarm bells continue to ring. A majority of respondents (89%) said workplace pressures were the main barrier to being able to access a preceptorship. Just a third of respondents (34%) said their organisation had sufficient experienced nurses and midwives to deliver them.

The harsh pressures on nurses

Comment after comment confirmed the harsh pressures new nurses face from day one. The survey teased out feelings of being overwhelmed and thrown in at the deep end, with many saying they didn’t think they would cope or felt unsupported.

At the other end of the career ladder, experienced nurses expressed concerns that they could not support their junior colleagues properly. Preceptorship is supposed to be focused on the needs of the individual nurse, yet many said that work is needed to develop bespoke programmes in different settings.

The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan makes clear that there needs to be a huge growth in the healthcare workforce over the next 10 years. Many nurses qualifying now will soon be the ones supporting junior colleagues and delivering expert care. They must be well supported.

Ultimately, policies and frameworks need resources to become a reality and make a difference. With an election on the horizon and huge organisational change happening in the NHS, the focus must be on building on the important steps already taken to support newly registered nurses.

  • Article first published by Nursing Times

The article Blog: Mentoring matters more than ever for nurses first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: Proud to welcome in Pride

Today, we welcome in Pride season when UNISON activists will again join Prides across every region and nation to celebrate our LGBT+ members and the wider community.

UNISON’s LGBT+ members bring so much to our union, and make it a diverse, wonderful organisation to join and to work for.

A year on from the last time I wrote about Pride month, it’s sad that such little progress has been made in our society and even worse, that in some ways, the UK government is taking huge leaps backwards.

One in five LGBT+ people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the last 12 months.

Attacks on and discrimination against LGBT+ people seem to constantly be on the rise, and Trans people are being used in a game of political football, with little regard for their feelings or their voices.

But within UNISON, we’ve a lot to be proud of. Our Trans equality training has been delivered to many branches and regions, with over 600 members now having taken part. Our trans activist network has doubled and are delivering a ‘train the trainer’ workshops for trans activists to keep up with the demand.

During LGBT+ history month in February, we lit up UNISON Centre in Pride colours and, as this year is UNISON’s Year of Black Workers, we celebrated our Black LGBT+ activists, both from our past and present.

So I want all our LGBT+ members to stay hopeful. UNISON is here, campaigning for urgent action by governments to combat rising inequality and to put adequate funding into specialist LGBT+ services.

We’re here, campaigning for the abolition of conversion therapy and to encourage inclusion, make more allies for the LGBT+ community and to always show solidarity.

Let’s be proud of our achievements over the years on LGBT+ inclusion, and make sure we keep equality at the heart of everything UNISON does.

Happy Pride season everyone. Stay fabulous.

The article Blog: Proud to welcome in Pride first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: Why this pay offer should be accepted

Thanks to the efforts of UNISON members in our NHS, the government has finally improved its offer on NHS pay.

It was only after UNISON announced our biggest day of strike action yet, with 32,000 members poised to strike, that the government agreed to hold talks.

UNISON members have shown immense courage in taking four days of strike action in England, building momentum in every corner of the country and maintaining incredible public support throughout.  

Together with unions from across the NHS, we have spent the last two weeks in talks to secure our NHS members a pay offer that properly protects, recognises and rewards the whole workforce. The NHS is one team, and every role in it is essential in providing excellent patient care.   

After intensive talks, the government’s offer to our health members now is a significant improvement on the 72p an hour they were awarded last summer:  

  • An additional one-off lump sum for 2022/23 which rises in value up the NHS pay bands. To provide a range, this is worth £1,655 for staff on Band 2 (over 8%), £2,009 for staff at the top of Band 5 and £3,789 for staff at the top of Band 9.  
  • A permanent 5% pay rise on all pay points for 2023/24.  
  • An increase to Band 2, raising the lowest pay point in the NHS to £11.45 an hour – 55p higher than the real Living Wage.  

UNISON is a member-led union, so it will now be up to our NHS members colleagues to decide whether to accept this offer.   

The health service group executive, our lead NHS committee, have carefully reviewed this offer and their recommendation is to accept. We are in no doubt that if it is not accepted, the government will take this offer off the table and the pay award NHS staff receive will be much worse.  

Very soon our NHS members will be asked to vote on whether they want to accept this offer in a consultation. The strike action that was planned for Monday 20 March will not go ahead, and there will be no further strike action for the duration of the consultation.  

We would not be where we are today without the extraordinary determination of all of our members. Our collective action has forced the government to listen and take action to improve the pay of all of our hardworking NHS staff. 

The article Blog: Why this pay offer should be accepted first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: Government inaction just leads to more action

An escalation in our industrial action is about to cause more headaches for the Westminster government – an administration that’s already buckling under the pressure.

Working people are standing up for themselves and refusing to quietly accept the pay crisis and a decline in their living standards. In contrast, the government ministers responsible for sorting out public sector pay disputes have gone silent.  

There have been no meetings between UNISON and ministers since before 11 January, and it has been weeks since Rishi Sunak protested on the media that his ‘door was always open’.

But is it? No invite has arrived in my office, and our request to meet the chancellor has gone unanswered.  

Even odder, is the health secretary’s admission to the health select committee that the government hadn’t submitted any evidence to the NHS pay review body

One thing is for sure, the pay crisis that our members are dealing with won’t go away if the government sticks to their current game plan of ignoring workers and their unions.

And the constant dire economic forecasts give nobody hope that the government knows what they’re doing. As we’ve had no progress in resolving our disputes, we’ve announced more NHS and Environment Agency strike dates.

Environment Agency workers will walk out for another 12 hours from 7am on Wednesday, 8 February.

Meanwhile, ambulance workers in London, Yorkshire, the South West, North East and North West will go on strike again on Friday, 10 February.  

Our NHS action, on top of that of other unions, means there’ll be action in the NHS every day this week.

For members who take the difficult decision to go on strike and lose a day’s pay, it’s tough. They need all of our solidarity and our moral support.

We’ve also set up an appeal, and any contribution you can make to the strike fund is very much appreciated.

UNISON has been taking sustained industrial action for some time now. We are now welcoming additional donations to our strike fund.
You can make a one-off bank transfer or set up a regular standing order to:
Account name: UNISON
Account no: 20170693
Sort code: 60-83-01
If you want your donation to go to the health strike fund, please use the reference health. If you want your donation to go to Environment Agency, please use the reference env. If you don’t use a reference it will go to the general strike fund.

The article Blog: Government inaction just leads to more action first appeared on the UNISON National site.

I’m a paramedic – here’s why I’m striking

Ahead of the December strike action, a UNISON ambulance member wrote in The New Statesman, explaining why they were taking action. They wished to remain anonymous.

This week, I, along with thousands of fellow ambulance workers belonging to the UNISON union across England, have voted to take strike action. We know it’s a shock – but we’re doing it out of necessity: not just for ourselves, but for the future of the NHS.

I’ve been a paramedic for more than 27 years, and I’ve seen the health service in all kinds of states – but this is the worst I’ve ever known it to be. For the past 12 years, my colleagues and I have said to each other “surely, it can’t get any worse?” and yet here we are.

Diagnosing the issues paramedics face is easy – because they’re the same problems the rest of my NHS colleagues, across various disciplines, are dealing with: dwindling pay, service overloads and a chronic underinvestment in the health service.

Like everyone, paramedics are feeling the effects of the cost-of-living crisis. Though it’s cliché, we often get asked, “Why do you do what you do?” and the answer is just as well-versed: because we want to help people. But with our pay declining in real terms, with NHS bosses in England giving us a measly pay increase equivalent to 72p per hour, when the cost of living is more than 10 per cent, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cope.

Ultimately, I think I’ll be alright – I’m a senior paramedic, living with a partner who’s in work, and have four grown children – but it really gets to me, knowing that many of my colleagues with young children are actively struggling to put food on the table for their kids, let alone themselves. Much has been made about the “choice” between “heating or eating”. I’ve been made aware of numerous instances of colleagues having to choose between feeding themselves and paying their rent. Staff take on countless overtime (sometimes taking on as many as ten extra shifts a month), and food banks have opened up within hospitals, to keep heads above water.

This simply isn’t sustainable – not least in the context of many of us still recovering from the scars of the pandemic. Many of us paid the price: I was signed off of work for three months because of stress induced by working on the front line during the pandemic. I couldn’t sleep, eat or engage in anything properly. I just closed down within myself.

Two years later, and the general burnout among NHS staff and paramedics continues. Much of the backlogs highlighted in elective care are also reflective of the state of my field. When I first started in the service, we’d attend anywhere between seven and ten patients in a single shift. Now, a lack of staffing, beds and infrastructure means that ambulances often become an extension of A&E, with crews having to stay with patients for as long as ten hours. It means that we’re not always there to help others in dire need.

This isn’t the fault of the ambulance service, crews on the road or the hospitals – this way of operating just isn’t safe for anyone: both staff and patients. Doing what we do, in the conditions we do it in – for 12, sometimes even 16 hours per shift – is it any wonder that staff are leaving the NHS in record numbers? With the deteriorating state of our hospitals an open secret, it should come as no surprise that, despite there being 133,000 vacancies in the health service, the NHS is struggling to recruit. As an institution, the health service is bleeding out.

My colleagues and I haven’t taken the decision to strike lightly. We just want a fair wage for what we put in, and to contribute to a service that is healthy on all fronts. Unfortunately, the current government’s problematic and chronic underfunding of the NHS is only compounded by its refusal to listen to the concerns unions are raising about how unsustainable its current way of operating is.

Politicians were happy to and quick enough to engage with us when it was easy for them: smiling and clapping for us during the pandemic. But when push comes to shove, and difficult paths to improve the NHS need to be forged, it seems more smoke and mirrors than anything meaningful.

So, until they engage with us and the striking nurses, along with our other colleagues across the health service, we’ll keep on pushing for better – for our sake, for your sake, and for the sake of the NHS.

This article first appeared in The New Statesman on 2 December.

 

The article I’m a paramedic – here’s why I’m striking first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Blog: A message to ambulance strikers on a difficult day

Today’s strikes across the NHS are not taken lightly, and not celebrated, but the government must take serious heed.

UNISON members at two Liverpool hospitals walked out at 7.30am and ambulance road crews across five trusts will start their strike action at 12 noon, as part of our dispute over pay and staffing.

Much planning has gone into contingency arrangements that have been agreed through negotiations with local employers and NHS staff. The same staff who have put so much hard work into patient care over many, many years.

Brave NHS staff who cared for the country in the pandemic are now taking this difficult industrial action to draw attention to the deep crisis in the NHS.

I, and all those involved in the action, expect it to be a difficult day. We are prepared for the government to play the blame game, rather than constructively negotiate with us. But we are not prepared to give up on our aims of improving pay, staffing, and ultimately, patient care.

I’ll be visiting picket lines across London today, to support our members, and my message to all the strikers today is this:

The current state of the NHS, and the resulting industrial action, is not your fault. Any blame from the government today, is a deflection away from taking responsibility for their own actions over the last 12 years.

Not only have they failed to provide the public with a safe, reliable, and first-class health service, they have managed its decline. Not only have they dug a very big hole by refusing to talk about pay, but they’ve also proven they’re incapable of any kind of decent and constructive industrial relations.

But right now, please remember that our action is lawful and right. Stay strong today, and for the rest of this dispute. We have no choice but to carry on, because the future of the NHS depends on all of us fighting for it.

I’ve been receiving messages of support from individuals, and organisations, who can see the damage the government is doing to the NHS and they’re behind us in taking this action today. I genuinely believe most of the public are behind us too.

The article Blog: A message to ambulance strikers on a difficult day first appeared on the UNISON National site.