NHS EMERGENCY

27-09-2006

Hundreds of newly qualified nurses around the West Midlands are still looking for jobs despite three years hard study. The Stirrer has been talking to the mother of one recent graduate who should be walking the wards, but who's just signed on for the first time instead.

Like any mother, Stephanie Cotterill from Bartley Green wants the best for her children. That's why she was delighted when her daughter Louise opted for a three-year university course to become a nurse specialising in paediatrics.

The profession has worked hard to shrug off it's “ooh matron” image and is now recognised as a skilled branch of the health trade, offering decent prospects at home and abroad.

When Louise started studying, her future looked bright. Under a Labour government the NHS was starting to shrug off the years of Thatcherite neglect, and she and her colleagues never doubted that they would get a job.

How quickly that perception has changed. The funding tap, though not exactly turned off, has slowed from a gush to a trickle, and health managers are having to turn Mr Blobby budgets into something more akin to Kate Moss.

At one level, that's no bad thing. It's our cash that they are spending after all, and any business given apparently unlimited funds can be guaranteed to waste it.

But the speed and severity of the cashflow crisis has hit trainees like Louise harder than most. Local hospitals like City and Sandwell have been laying off workers, not recruiting them, and it's a pattern repeating itself around the country.

That's why last week, instead of helping sick children get better, she was signing on for the first time. For her mum it was a heart-breaking moment.

“To see her walking out of the DSS office just didn't seem right”, Stephanie told The Stirrer.

“She's worked so hard, and there she is picking up £50. It's soul-destroying. And there another 300 to 400 like her in Birmingham at the moment, all in the same boat.

“It's particularly hard for her because children's services are the hardest hit, they are cutting beds andwards left right and centre.”

Stephanie herself suffers from severe arthritis, so I ideally would like Louise to work close to home, to help with her care. But she's realistic enough to know that her daughter's predicament means she will have to be willing to work anywhere. So far she's applied for jobs as far apart as Huddersfield and Surrey.

More worrying still, she's also been looking in Ireland, underlining the madness of training nurses on the NHS in Britain only for other countries to enjoy the benefit.

Mostly though, the cost is a human one. As Stephanie says: “It's brought a lot of unnecessary stress and worry into our lives. She just wants to do the job she's trained to do.”