Viney!

I've had a week off and as. Result I have been calm and relaxed. So this morning I've tuned into Jeremy Vine just to experience a healthy amount of rage and frustration. One idiot caller in particular phoned stating that "the NHS is in ruins because all these cheap foreigners are taking english nurses jobs". Tuis made me wince. Its people as ill informed as this that keep the bnp going.

So I thought I'd shoot holes in this statement here.

1. every healthcare professional in the NHS is being paid on a banded system. I am a staff nurse so I am in pay band five. I am on Exactly the same pay as every other staff nurse in the country regardless of race, gender or eye colour.

2. There is no shortage of nursing jobs in this country. Infact both trusts I have worked at have declared crisis because they can't fill all the nursing posts they have.

3. The reason nurses from places like the Philippines appear to get more jobs than english nurses is because the level of training in the philippines is far better than the standard of training here. Most philippino nurses graduate with education and experience that takes an english qualified nurse ten years to catch up with. Also all of the phillipino nurses I've worked with have worked harder than anyone else whilst english trained nurses have spent more time complaining.

This caller really annoyed me and I think its because hers was the voice of the vox populi. Ill informed, ready to blame everyone but herself, but violently prepared to voice her opinion. In some small way I can see a comparison between people like this and a certain German political movement in the 1920/30s.

There we go. Another rant over. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and new year.
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