Four nurse jobs to go at IRH

Lorraine Tinney • Published 22 Nov 2011 11:00 14 Comments

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FOUR senior nurses are to lose their jobs at Inverclyde Royal Hospital, it has been confirmed.

One senior sister and three junior sister posts have been axed from the surgical ward at the hospital, right, as part of a major shake-up of services, with the staff being redeployed elsewhere.

But union bosses have condemned the move and say the hospital can ill afford to lose such experienced staff.

Raymond O'Donoghue, Unison divisional convener at IRH, said: "It is a sad reflection of the times that staff of this stature are being redeployed.

"It's absolutely shocking in this day and age. These people have a wealth of skills and have worked here for many years.

"These people have got their own lives and families, but they could be redeployed anywhere across the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.

"Staff with this amount of experience will be someone else's gain and our loss - it is a great loss to this hospital."

Health board bosses say the move is due to advances in surgical techniques which mean patients are dealt with more quickly and don't need an overnight stay.

This has resulted in the service being streamlined and a reduction in the number of surgical beds at the hospital.

A health board spokeswoman said: "Four nurses within the surgical department have been displaced as part of this process and our human resources team is working with them to find a suitable alternative to ensure their valuable skills remain with NHS GGC and in line with our absolute commitment to the NHS Scotland policy of no compulsory redundancies."

Management say more than 80 per cent of surgical operations last year were carried out at the hospital without the need for an overnight stay.

The spokeswoman added: "This redesign was taken forward in full partnership with surgical IRH clinical staff through a dedicated steering group. As part of this work, a professional review of nursing roles within surgical services was also undertaken.

"This has resulted in an improved skill mix within the inpatient general surgical service at the hospital as we now have a higher nurse-to-patient ratio and an improved ratio of trained nursing staff to nursing auxiliaries."

This article appeared in Greenock Telegraph 22 Nov 11

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askelvis
456 posts
Nov 22, 11:23
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Is that to make way for even more managerial posts to manage less folk

Recommend? Yes 19 No 2
weeang
5 posts
Nov 22, 11:40
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4 visible posts so far.. what about the ones you don;t hear about and this is only the start!!!

Fast forward to Greenock Telegraph 2031 In the historical pictures.. Remembering Inverclyde... Hard to believe it for Inverclyde residents there used to be a fully working acute hospital in your town... Imagine what it was like to be able to visit your family in an acute hospital locally instead of having to plan a whole day of travel in buses and trains to spend 10 minutes seeing them... On the positive the Great Glasgow and Clyde health board managers have successfully reduced they spending by closing down all hospitals in the clyde areas (IRH, Vale & RAH) and will now revert to their old name Great Glasgow Health Board.. I really fear for the health of our local residents.. if you become suddenly unwell are involved in an accident or injured chances are your survival rate will be much less than residents in the big cities..This on the back of the information about the lowest life expectancies .... GG&C HB should be hanging their heads in shame..

Recommend? Yes 18 No 1
goldielocks
1 post
Nov 22, 13:16
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absolutely disgusting, death by a thousand cuts right enough, management can say what they want but staff cuts are not good, and yes what about all the other staff redployed weve not been told about, ravenscraig staff, clinic staff, surgical staff, opthalmic staff, who next??

Recommend? Yes 13 No 0
alissarobertson
12 posts
Nov 22, 14:43
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One word......DISGUSTED!!!!

Recommend? Yes 7 No 0
Tiddles
1077 posts
Nov 22, 16:09
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Make no mistake, the plan is to close IRH. What we will have is a small casualty station in the Larkfield Unit where patients would be assessed/treated by ENPs (nurses with stethoscopes who work cheaper than doctors but are most certainly NOT doctors) with the help of one of the on-duty, out of hours GPs (when available). Those turning up for anything they deem to be, 'non-urgent' will be sent off with a card stating the number for the VILE, NHS24 by whom you can be condescended to by some unqualified telephone operator who will almost tell you that there are no nurses available to talk to you (it's very time consuming waiting for your H Grade promotion). There is space for simple, 'nurse led' clinics during the day but everything else will be sent to Paisley or the Southern General.

There would be NO consultants based in the area, the best you'd have are these super- nurses and GPs. If you have chest pain you would be taken straight to the Jubilee in Clydebank and if you have a serious accident it's off to Glasgow. If you want to visit your friends or loved ones, be prepared to either take the execrable public transport system or walk for miles to find a parking space at either the Southern or RAH.

The land that you and I bought and paid for will be sold off for housing and more than a 150,000 people will be without the services of a proper district general hospital. And, before any of the Labour mob start bashing the SNP, let us remember who set up NHSGG&C and also let us remember under whose aegis the original closure plan was conceived. Labour of course, wasn't it Duncan? (the man who claimed to have saved the Rankin)!!!!!

I know that Nicola Sturgeon is aware of this carry on because I have written to her and she has acknowledged my concerns. I would encourage everyone here to write to her too and ask for assurances that Inverclyde Royal Hospital as we know it now will not be reduced in size and scope and that full, consultant led services will continue at the site.

NHSGG&C are far too big and have virtually no accountability. They have a massive bureaucracy and impenetrable reporting structure. We need to get back to local boards based around the district hospital and the local primary care agencies. The board should be 50/50 appointed and elected with no party politics being involved. People in the area should have the right to, 'recall' any board member, elected or not, whom they deem to have failed the community either by incompetence or actions contrary to the good of the area.

If they won't give us local then just take the whole thing and run it directly from Edinburgh. It's all very dismal.

Recommend? Yes 16 No 1
stuart1
32 posts
Nov 22, 19:45
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poor pb wrights will be next to pay staff of aswell as the irh keeps them in work where im concerned blow the place up its a dump of a place and not worth the comments

Recommend? Yes 5 No 1
jimbo4
1 post
Nov 22, 20:07
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Having just spent 8 nights in J North and J South, and seeing first hand the high standard of care provided. The obvious fact that there is already a shortage of staff

but I have to say the atmosphere that was projected by staff at all times was positive.

But I have to agree with Tiddles I.R.H. will continue to be a target because

as we all know the Conservatives believe in CENTRALIZAION

and yet again just like the Greenock Coastguard Station, and the very serious concerns of the the people of Inverclyde and please remember the very large populace of the surrounding area which both these services cover, will be IGNORED.

Recommend? Yes 5 No 2
kaboyle
1 post
Nov 22, 20:32
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This is in direct reply to stuart1, you may feel that the place is a dump, however hell mend you if you need an emergancy addmission and there is no hospital for you to be addmitted to. You may need BP wrights then.

Recommend? Yes 6 No 2
Argyll1854
61 posts
Nov 22, 20:48
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FAO Tiddles, i would just like to comment that the Mrs worked at NHS 24 in Clydebank and always gave 110% in her work, what you dont hear about is the amount of nonsense that comes from the hierarchy within that Group on their employees, maybe then you could comment on the Nursing side.

Are you by chance the Tele's agony aunt !!!!!

Recommend? Yes 3 No 1
rod2mc
293 posts
Nov 22, 20:50
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Centralisation is the keyword as mentioned.

The continual erosion of services will result in a glorified clinic. Fair enough, centralising some services where the patient does benefit is all very good and well, but what we're seeing here is saving and nothing more.

Another factor to bare in mind is this (now a bit of a historic issue) , at present, the Southern's maternity unit is being upgraded and is to be a centre of excellence. This is what????? 10 miles from RAH maybe???? and maybe even the same distance to the Princess Royal???? 3 fully functioning consultant led maternity units in such close proximity and yet, as Tiddles pointed out the IRH supports a population in excess of 150,000 (approx 80K from Inverclyde and the rest made up of the dunoon peninsula, bute and parts of north ayrshire) and yet we are to travel to Glasgow.

Ive still not figured out the logic behind that one!

Recommend? Yes 5 No 1
wallace1297
117 posts
Nov 22, 21:36
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The last few comments here hit the nail on the head. Centralisation!

With the demise of the consultant led maternity service in 2003 under the old NHS Greater Argyll & Clyde board (chaired by then former Labour councillor John Mullen), when the Labour/Lib Dem Executive started the centralisation agenda, blaming the EU on it at the time because of the working time directive, this then led on to other losses of inpatient services in paediatrics, gynaecology, dermatology, etc.

Sadly NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde have continued much of this agenda. While I agree that modern medicine has and is bringing about changes, some for the good and some that seem not so good, why in this case because IRH has been so successful within its surgical services are we seeing staff being lost and deployed elsewhere? Why not work and build on the surgical success at IRH and make this an area of excellence and bring more patients from elsewhere to IRH for surgery?

Recommend? Yes 3 No 1
Tiddles
1077 posts
Nov 22, 22:05
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Well Argyll1854, I certainly cannot comment on your good lady's work record but I CAN comment upon some of the dreadful problems I and my colleagues come upon as a direct result of the failings of NHS 24. Anything that comes between a medical professional and his or her patient is as far as I'm concerned, unacceptable. I have never been in favour of, 'remote triage' because it never works in favour of the patient. It relies upon the patient saying the right thing to the call-handler and as I know from years of experience, the patient might not be able to express themselves properly if at all. NHS 24 calls are usually answered by unqualified call-centre staff who go through a check list with the patient. If the call handler thinks it appropriate, the call is put through to a nurse for, 'triage'. Of course if the lines are busy, this can take a while and the patient might be asked to call back later or a nurse will call back. Now I'd love to cite the many instances of poor service from NHS 24 that I have encountered but for obvious reasons I can't. It's a bad idea and probably now costs much more than the savings it was meant to make.

Recommend? Yes 8 No 1
WeeJockW
676 posts
Nov 23, 20:01
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"Health board bosses say the move is due to advances in surgical techniques which mean patients are dealt with more quickly and don't need an overnight stay".

And then you get the politicians who are the easiest to operate on. There's no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains, and no spine, and there are only two moving parts - the mouth and the ars*hole - and they are interchangeable'

Recommend? Yes 1 No 1
******
Nov 23, 20:23
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NEARTIC
42 posts
Nov 23, 22:45
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they want to move everything to the RAI soon Greenock will have nothing , they will give the building to riverclyde homes so they can turn it into apartments

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