You don’t need to consider a specific n4. Numbers of nurses are stabilised as the normal way of doing business, otherwise the numbers would be dropping precipitously every year.
The NHS *maintains *the status quo by keeping a cohort in training each year, it has dropouts and fluctuations and a certain number of additional hires outside of that may or may not be needed to keep that level of staffing at around the currently budgeted 280,000, just assume that is a constant and isn’t going anywhere. It is “business as usual”.
This policy is only about *additional *measures to improve retention, *additional *external recruitment, *additional *training places. It is speaking directly to what will done differently in the future over and above what is currently done to merely maintain and stabilise the numbers.
The combination of each strand of that can add up to 50,000 more nurses. That’s it. Consider it simplistic and incomplete if you like ( I do) but it isn’t wrong and the logic is perfectly sound.
ETA - just wondering, Let’s say the policy had been prefaced with “the initial assumption for this policy is that all measures currently in place to maintain nursing numbers will continue as usual”.
Would that then allow you to accept the logic of the policy recommendations? is that the bit that is missing?
Hospital trusts that are struggling to balance budgets have absolutely no incentive to fill vacant posts, each unfilled post represents a non-incurred cost.
Using bank nurses might seem more costly but when you add in the associated on costs they can turn out to be cheaper.
I think you have to first define what is actually counted as a nurse, which means looking at the number of hours, level of training and what they actually do - because a nurse doing paperwork might in some cases be doing direct patient work and might well not.
Increases in the number of nurses is not possible to impose centrally either - so how is a hospital trust going to develop a business case for an increase number of posts?
My suspicion is that the number of nurses will become a target to be achieved - which means that hospital trusts will almost certainly find ways to manipulate the figures, this is all the more likely because that number is politically sensitive
You’re still ignoring churn. Over the next five years, to maintain the current 280,000 number, the NHS would need to hire something like 70,000 new nurses (guesstimate). That’s the number needed to offset the number of nurses leaving the profession. What the Conservative Party is proposing is to reduce the number leaving to something like 51,500 nurses. They’re also planning to hire 31,500 new nurses. 280,000 + 70,000 – 51,500 + 31,500 = 330,000.
…you absolutely have to consider a specific n4. Because n4 is the number that you claim is the number that will bring the amount of nurses to 330,000. And that number by design has to be higher than the 18,500 nurses retained in order to hit 50,000 unless retention rates hit 100%.
I’m not going to make these assumptions. My cites show that it isn’t “business as usual.”
The logic isn’t perfectly sound. Look how many assumption you have to make to get to 50,000. It is perfectly fair to look at the minister statement and to say that it was misleading. What you have said here and what the minister said are two completely different things.
Nope. Because I have zero confidence that the nursing numbers are being ‘maintained.’
I’m not ignoring churn. I’m just not relying on guesstimates like you have chosen to do.
The 70,000 guesstimate doesn’t really matter. It’s the difference in the number of nurses entering the NHS versus the number of nurses leaving the NHS that matters. The goal of the Conservative’s retention program is to have 18,500 nurses staying in the NHS who would otherwise as left.
For example, change the 70,000 to 80,000. Again, this is the hypothetical number of nurses leaving the NHS over a five year period, and being replaced by the same number of nurses in order to maintain current nursing levels. If 18,500 nurses are retained, then the figures change to 280,000 + 80,000 – 61,500 + 31,500 = 330,000.
Remember the whole question of this hijack is whether the Conservative numbers add up to 330,000 or not. You should really just accept Matt Hancock’s statement that the number of nurses will increase to 330,000. If you want the math of how the retained nurses go into the 330,000, there it is. Argue all you want about student nurses, if the retention program will be successful, or if the numbers are ignoring Brexit effects. Those are arguments that the proposed policy won’t be successful. But saying that the Conservatives are lying by using figures that don’t add up is demonstrably false.
Getting back to the OP, Johnson seems quite proud to have broken the “Red Wall” and determined to retain those seats in the next election. He’s being quite nationalistic, both in terms of Brexit and immigration, and in the generally patriotic tone he’s taking. But he’s also promising a lot of spending on middle and north England. He’s in a honeymoon period, and his prime-ministership will depend on how he faces the setbacks and crises that eventually will happen. But so far he’s being generous with spending on several areas that can use additional funding. He’s obviously gambling on the economy staying up and interest rates remaining low in order to pay for all that spending. But, at just over a week since the election, he’s coming across as pretty centrist. So if the OP is scared of a swing to the right, early indications are that the opposite is happening.
So no, the numbers aren’t “dropping precipitously” are they? or is this a use of the word that I’m unfamiliar with?
But you may well say that though they are increasing they aren’t increasing by enough, or that the numbers of student and full time nurses dropping out is too high, you may even go so far as to say that we should do something about this and commit to having more nurses in the future.
Good plan, I know some people that would agree with you.
Over the last 10 years the UK population has gone upbut registered nurses have gone down. If one in four NHS wards has dangerously low numbers of nurses and if that wasn’t the case 10 years ago then the numbers have dropped precipitously as far as I’m concerned because they haven’t employed the numbers that are actually needed.
Its a shame that these people with a plan couldn’t be honest about it.
You are now introducing your own definition of “dropped”, one that doesn’t actually mean “get less” unless you chose to focus certain specific areas and ignore those where the numbers are increasing. Here are some better and independent figures for you..
Your can talk. You’ve spent over half of this thread using a creative definition of the term “more nurses”. You hit bedrock in your very first post on the subject in this thread.
What’s Laughable-Out-Loud is the contortions you’re going through rather than admitting you’re wrong. But go ahead. Give us your latest explanation of why the promised 330,000 target doesn’t actually mean 330,000. Do us a favour and tell what us the actual promised target is. Please show your math.
How does Wrenching Spanners get to 330,000 nurses? By literally making up numbers. Just believe Matt Hancock Wrenching Spanners insists. Just make up whatever number you like, as long as it adds up to 330,000. This is positively Orwellian.
This is the definition you used:
You will need more than 50,000 nurses to hit the 330,000 target unless retention figures happen to equal 100%. You just can’t admit that.
In order to hit that target there will be a period of greater retention of existing nurses and greater recruitment of brand new nurses leading to a net increase of 50,000 overall. An estimate was given as to what the government plans to do and what they think has a reasonable chance of getting the NHS to 330,000.
The numbers work, you are just completely ignoring the normal training and recrutiment numbers that currently keep things stable and also seem to be thinking that we are talking about only putting 50,000 new nurses in the system and expecting to get to 330,000. That is not what I’ve been saying.
…these weren’t the numbers that Hancock used. Hancock said some of those will be new to the NHS, but the number also includes** those who are currently in the NHS**. I’m not the one who doesn’t understand the normal recruitment cycle, etc, its Hancock who literally doesn’t understand what it was he was saying. Hancock’s numbers and Hancock’s methodology doesn’t work.
At this point (and in fact for some time) it is clear that not only do you not understand it, I think you are now willfully chosing to misunderstand it.
There is nothing more that I can add to help you, Simplified explanations don’t work, dealing with the detail doesn’t work. I’m out.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear - I was aware of the fridge story, the point I was trying to make was that I think that is relatively unimportant compared to details of actual policies and whether they in fact come to fruition. In other words, if this government does indeed manage to increase the number of filled nursing posts to 330,000, I’ll give that considerably more weight in assessing their effectiveness than the fact the PM once hid in a fridge to dodge an interview.
Don’t worry, I don’t think Banquet Bear is a UK voter (but I could be wrong).