Anyone else in NHS management worried about future job security?

[CollectingAllTheACEs]

Not sure what I want to get out of this thread - perhaps just opinions from others. I've worked in the NHS for 16 years and have worked my way up to an 8a middle management role (after completing a masters while in a previous role). Obviously history tells me that nothing in the NHS stays the same and there have been huge shakeups recently and to come with NHS England, etc. but the Trust I currently work for also has a no compulsory redundancy policy - voluntary redundancy has been offered twice now but it's not beneficial at all for me to take it.

Given the results of the local elections last week I'm becoming increasingly worried about Reform coming into power and their policies towards people like me - I constantly see disparaging remarks around 'middle management with clipboards' and apparently us hindering staff from doing their jobs, implementing bureaucratic red tape, etc. etc. etc. - and Reform seem to be appealing to this nature by apparently removing us and investing more in clinical staff (which of course isn't a bad thing on paper).

HOWEVER, my role is to support those clinical staff in all of their back office functions - finance, performance, investment proposals, etc. If people like me didn't exist anymore then those clinicians would have to spend their time doing my work and not seeing patients. I don't know why that's so difficult to understand.

I think I'd really struggle to find a role in the private sector as well given that where I am now is such a niche role...

Trusts frequently have cycles of redundancies with restructures every year. It’s nothing new. My DH is high up in NHS and worked across several trusts. At his current that are currently making redundancies across band 8s and recruiting more band 9s.

Maybe you’ve been especially lucky at your trust?

I probably have been - I've been involved in lots of reshuffles (have worked across six Trusts/Organisations) but never been at risk of redundancy. Currently going through another one in our Trust but it doesn't impact below director level (we're actually reducing our number of execs). I suppose I'm more thinking about snap decisions by Farage et al that people like me aren't needed without anyone actually thinking about the consequences...

@CollectingAllTheACEs would you be willing to give an example of what you do in terms of "performance" please?

I can understand the anxiety, but there's not point living in fear of a government who isn't in power.

I’m sorry you’re worried but when nursing posts have been cut , it’s more than reasonable to explore if any management roles can be merged. Savings shoujd be multi disciplinary.

That;'s not what my post is about and you know that

I am an 8a Commissioning Manager for an ICB and currently ‘at risk’ as part of a reorganisation.

I’ve been through three before and this is by far the most brutal. My boss just interviewed and didn’t get her job.

Portfolios are being stretched. Directors have had 3, sometimes 4 jobs rolled into 1.

I absolutely know there needs to be change and people have strong opinions about NHS managers but we’re still people with lives and responsibilities and I for one have never been busier work wise. I don’t know who is going to do that work in our new structure. It’s not work that is going away.

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing people on absurd salaries having to live like normal people due to AI.

If you think AI can do my job then you have absolutely no understanding of what I do. I earn £60k a year, single woman with a large mortgage and the same ever-increasing bills as everyone else out there. I've worked my way up for 16 years and had 7 years of student debt to get to this 'absurd salary'. Oh and by the way I regularly put in 50+ hour weeks with no overtime pay as well.

They're down banding the shit out of any roles they can around here. My line manager's leaving - they're putting the same post out as a band lower. Same bullshit = less money.

A colleague died - they used it as an excuse to cut the post. Our professional lead retired due to ill health - that was used not to replace the post and to restructure my profession's management... it's horrendous how people are being treated. It's not my banding level under review (I'm NHS small fry) but I'm watching incredibly skilled and professionally amazing colleagues being, to use a friend's description "your service is being absolutely gutted".

Senior senior big cheese management - they're multiplying like fucking bacteria though.

I've just been gently bollocked by another of our service management (in good nature) because I'm trying to keep going with shit mental health rather than going sick as, as someone who is autistic, works her tits off but does need occasional adjustments to do so (I do more than my share - it's things like avoiding the office when I'm burnt out and noise cancelling headphones) - I'm shitting myself with the way things are going in terms of hate on the disabled and wanting to make cuts where they can etc etc.

There is a real lack of understanding that good management is an important 'amplifier' in the NHS, i.e. it increases productivity with the same level of clinical workforce. The problem is that good management has become very difficult for various reasons, mostly because of how the NHS is run (short-term targets, constant reorganisation, excessive control from NHS England and government which fail to understand what the real issues are) but also because recruiting good people into this sort of environment is hard. The good people go elsewhere. I imagine Nigel will be even more incompetent than Labour in this respect. Ultimately the NHS is not a good place to work - I have now left and I wouldn't advise anyone to work in it unless they have no other choice.

If you have a massive mortgage and you don't know if your job is secure then you might consider downsizing.

Unnecessarily patronising.

Hi. I work in NHS Wales at an 8c level. lots of restructuring going on and would agree it is the Band 7 and 8a posts most at risk here. i agree with the PP; excellent leadership is needed in the NHS to maintain patient safety and flow. they need to take some of their cost savings and invest in leadership and management training so these people are working at the top of their licence and are able to cope with the demand of a highly complex organisation. Good Luck OP, the uncertainty is never nice x

Performance in the NHS relates to meeting clinical standards, health and safety requirements, implementing legislation, meeting patient need within specific timescales, managing budgets and resources, implementing appraisals for staff..... bit of an endless list, some of which is more helpful than others. good NHS leaders manage these performance markers in a patient centred and meaningful way, rather than as a tick box or hierarchical exercise.

Why? Live within your means or lose your home, it's that simple.

Are you always this prickly? Of course all jobs in nhs needs to be evaluated.

What do you mean ‘more clinical staff on paper looks good’. Clinical trans are shirt staffed - evidenced widely.

Right thank you

I only ever saw them briefly from a nursing perspective and it was very demotivating the way it was set up, didn't have anything to do with care and involve learning a lot of management speak and figuring out how to answer questions so they bothered us less

That was a really long time ago, though
Hopefully it's improved

I'm not struggling horrendously and would obviously have redundancy pay if it ever came to that. My home is my sanctuary that I have spent years putting together - I was just pointing out to the other poster than £60k is by no means an 'absurd salary'

*clinical staff are short - should have put glasses on !

Afternoon Wes!

Honestly Op whenever someone working for the NHS I'm a non clinical position posts on Mumsnet it becomes a bunfight.

.

faildox

It’s so interesting how people react about NHS non clinical roles. How do they think:
HR gets organised?
Appointments get organised?
Work force planning gets done?
Who looks after IT systems?
Who looks after buildings, and organises clinic spaces
Looks after budgets?
and more - everything that gets done at your work needs to be done in the NHS but on a massive scale !