Quote Originally Posted by navypie View Post
My wife as been asked to work overtime recently, not something she likes doing but she would never say no when needs must. They have 4 nurses of sick on her ward, none of them are from the UK.
That post made sense to me until the last few words, because non-UK labour throwing a sickie is the exact opposite of my experience. The last place I worked at employed a large number of Polish workers. I knew the HR bloke so I asked him why and he told me the owner of the company actively encouraged it. The reason was because they worked harder, and had much better timekeeping and attendance records than the locals. I also have a sister-in-law who is with a bloke who is a land worker picking vegetables in Lincolnshire, and he said he used to be one of the best workers in the fields. Since his company recruited a lot of migrant labour he says he's had to up his game quite a bit to look good. His words describing his migrant workmates were "they don't half bloody work". I know this doesn't fit in with the beloved right wing 'benefit scrounging migrant' culture, but it's the truth.

Back to the NHS then, and here's my story. My youngest daughter is in her second year at uni training to be a nurse. Last week she had a placement on a ward at City Hospital doing three night shifts starting at 7pm and finishing at 7:30am. On her first night, a healthcare assistant had phoned in sick (can't think why, but I didn't ask their ethnic origin). Because she is dedicated and aware of how the NHS works, she mucked in (literally) and helped the team provide the service we expect. Instead of shadowing a qualified nurse as the placement said she should, she spent the shift basically wiping arses and cleaning up vomit. How much do you think her hourly rate was for doing this 12.5 hour night shift? Minimum wage? No, she didn't get a single penny because this was part of the 'education' she is paying £9,000 per year to get. She even had to pay to park!!! I know Soccerman's comment to her would be "suck it up loser, our boys won", but I would hope he is in a very small minority. That's why I posted the most recent performance figures for the NHS. Any decent civilised country would see it as an outrage, but apparently not here. Boris has promised to "get Brexit done", so who gives a f@ck about the state of the NHS?