Nhs

[Scotchpie]

I cannot agree more with the comments posted here. I have worked as a permie in the NHS for 7 years and have been contracting to the NHS as an information analyst for 18 months.

The main problem with the NHS is its belief that a nurse is also eminently qualified to be a manager/PM/developer/analyst or just about any other non-nursing specialist job in the hospital.

For example, if someone has trained as a nurse and then worked their way up over several years and found that at the age of 35 or 40 they couldn't rise any further up the nursing ladder, they seem to get it into their heads that they are also qualified managers and PMs (even though they've never taken a management course, or been on any management training in their life). The same is said for doctors, though less so as, considering the salary they pull as doctors, few of them feel the need to move into management.

This means that when you do get talented individuals from non-nursing specialist disciplines, such as IT, working in the hospital and seeking promotion, they always get bypassed in favour of ex-nurses who are board with nursing ("so you're applying for a job in IT and hold a PhD in XYZ, pah - that's nothing, this candidate has 15 years experience as a nurse"). Hence real talent leaves the NHS.

I know a developer who came from outside the NHS and justs spends his days banging his head against a wall because those above him in senior management IT posts and who should understand what he's talking about quite frankly don't and don't even seem keen to understand.

I knew another guy who was a qualified quality manager and worked for many years in industry before joining the NHS. He had the same experience as the developer.

A few years ago I did my professional qualifications in statistics and moved into the information department as an analyst. I couldn't believe it when I had to explain variance and difference to a senior informatics manager and how the two are not the same. And lets not talk about explaining standard deviation... I'm still having nightmares.

[The Agents View]

Quite....you want to try being an agent, in a situation where you are benchmarked against the performance of those working the NHS sector, who are quite honestly placing people for fun - It would seem the whole of the NHS is being run by contractors these days, so it's a BIG pool to fish from....

[chris79]

Ahhh the NHS.

We have an NHS department here - I'm afraid to tell you that you're all right - it's washed up nurses, doctors, and general NHS bods who do it, and get paid quite well for it. "NHS experience" is required because that is what is stipulated by the client - you're right, they live in their own little bubble which they do not allow to be penetrated very often.

When you look at the results, they're poor - try using the NHS Choose and Book system - let me know when you're done as I'll be just about ready to draw my pension.

The problem though, is that the government won't address this - the NHS sheilds itself, and is never likely to admit to the Prime Minister that the reason the systems are failing is that they're utilising highly overpaid converted nurses to manage major projects.

What I would say is that if you're an agent (Pimp, whatever you want to call us) its like printing money, and has been for about 3 years.

TAV

That's the shocking thing about it, I can understand that they want to keep their own little sh*t empire going with nobody questioning things in fear of exposure.. but the fact they get paid a fortune to do this from the public purse is annoying to say the least.

[The Agents View]

Ahhh the NHS.

We have an NHS department here - I'm afraid to tell you that you're all right - it's washed up nurses, doctors, and general NHS bods who do it, and get paid quite well for it. "NHS experience" is required because that is what is stipulated by the client - you're right, they live in their own little bubble which they do not allow to be penetrated very often.

When you look at the results, they're poor - try using the NHS Choose and Book system - let me know when you're done as I'll be just about ready to draw my pension.

The problem though, is that the government won't address this - the NHS sheilds itself, and is never likely to admit to the Prime Minister that the reason the systems are failing is that they're utilising highly overpaid converted nurses to manage major projects.

What I would say is that if you're an agent (Pimp, whatever you want to call us) its like printing money, and has been for about 3 years.

TAV

[Mephisto]

I managed to sneak in the back door of the NHS as an Information Analyst, which is not my forte (I'm more of a Project Co-ordinator/Support geek).

Anyway not touched SQL since college but they still took me on because I lived 5 minutes away, was willing to take £100 p/day and didn't mind doing mundane tasks from time to time. Also there was some budget underspend on their behalf too I later found out.

Needless to say I left after 1 month as I couldn't hack the tulip systems/people/governance etc. that must dog most of the Public Sector and I would never advise a serious IT Professional to put themselves through that environment.

I was playing at dogsbody and it hacked me off, so I can't imagine how a 'real' Contractor with expert skills/seniority would get on.

[HairyArsedBloke]

I've got NHS experience

As a tax evader - I got my monies worth

Got to sort out alternative health care now. Close the whole thing down, I say.

[Old Greg]

I used to apply for those NPfIT roles and did so on and off or some years. I never got shortlisted because of the "must have NHS experience" requirement. Even roles where I was a spot-on match with that one exception.

Since then I have spent some time with 'Health Infomatics' people at conferences and professional gatherings. They tend to be failed nurses, washed-up doctors or some other form of NHS failure that then went into IT out of desparation.

As far as I can see, the NHS IT systems are tulipe because their IT people are tulipe. And they like it that way.

There isn't a professional IT bod amongst them. So if that's what you are, they won't want you.

HTH

Still - keeps me in business. It may be that the good people don't bother attneding the conferences because they're too busy - I know I never do

Funnily enough, where I am at the moment, they are quite unusual in the way they take PMs without an NHS background (not a tech programme).

[chris79]

It makes me wonder.. out of all the vacancies I applied for I did manage to get an interview 6 weeks ago..

Turned up 15 mins early.. they then interviewed me 45 mins late, so I was sat in reception for almost an hour. When I asked on the way up "oh, so have you been busy interviewing then?.." I was told "no you're the first"....

Anyway, put out what I thought was a good interview, ticked all the boxes, no surprise didn't get the job.. it went to someone with stronger leadership skills or something.

That's 1 interview/response from about 100+ I've applied for NHS UK wide.. and it was only because they wanted someone working local because the rate was so poor. I was far from devastated not landing the job purely on the rate was almost permie wages, if not worse!! (I kid you not).

[BrowneIssue]

I used to apply for those NPfIT roles and did so on and off or some years. I never got shortlisted because of the "must have NHS experience" requirement. Even roles where I was a spot-on match with that one exception.

Since then I have spent some time with 'Health Infomatics' people at conferences and professional gatherings. They tend to be failed nurses, washed-up doctors or some other form of NHS failure that then went into IT out of desparation.

As far as I can see, the NHS IT systems are tulipe because their IT people are tulipe. And they like it that way.

There isn't a professional IT bod amongst them. So if that's what you are, they won't want you.

HTH

[chris79]

All I see on Jobserve are NHS roles with the typical 'must have NHS experience or do not apply' bulls**t.

I guess the reason there are so many is due to the fact that there's only 3 people in the country able to meet the criteria ever out of work at one time, and they can command any rate they want because of this.