General election/politics

indiana · Tennis legend

General election/politics

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/13/tory-mp-david-duguid-failed-to-declare-wifes-bp-shares-before-oil-and-gas-debates

I used to work for one of the Big 4 audit firms. It used to be made very clear to us around potential conflict of interests and declaring same, if we held shares in clients of the firm. At best, you couldnt work on those clients projects; at worst, you would be required to sell any shares or, even more, your family members sell their shares if they had them.

To not do this when required (and you had to be proactive) was a potential sackable offence

Not sure why it should be any less a level of scrutiny for an MP's interests.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Apparently:

"Ucas data published this week showed that applications for UK nursing degree courses were down for the third year running.
Just 31,100 people applied for a course for 2024, down from 33,570 last year, 41,220 in 2022 and 46,040 in 2021."

So:
we've lost all our access to EU-trained nurses,
we have a 35% drop over a couple of years in people enrolling to be trained to be nurses
the NHS has a shortage of over 42,000 nurses

Yes, obviously, we're looking to Asia to fill the gap. According to the UK's Nursing and Midwifery Council, Indian nurses now total about 50,000, up from about 18,000 a few years back

www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fcms-image-bucket-production-ap-northeast-1-a7d2.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com%2Fimages%2F_aliases%2Farticleimage%2F8%2F7%2F7%2F7%2F46197778-1-eng-GB%2F20230707-UK-nurses-by-origin-Line.png?source=nar-cms

Up till now that means all those post-Brexit nurses have also been allowed to bring their spouses, as well as their children.

And, just anecdotally, one of my sisters (who is a hospital nurse) says that in her hospital, where there's been a large number of new Asian nurses last year, about half are now on maternity leave (and some are arranging to move to Australia when their maternity period finishes and they've got the necessary months - the UK counts for Australia so some see it as a stepping stone to where they wanted to be in the first place)

This is NOT to say the Portuguese nurses are any better than Indian nurses, say. Simply that this is what is happening, the numbers are not working and this is not what was promised (pre Brexit or by politicians irregardless of Brexit)

Blue_Belle · Strong Club Player

Aussie seems the place to be - we're in a severe midwife shortage as they go over there, as well as people in my expat groups who want to come here just to move other there.

And to be honest, we might eventually go there too since the UK isn't very welcoming.

Shhh · Challenger level

Coup Droit wrote:
Apparently:

"Ucas data published this week showed that applications for UK nursing degree courses were down for the third year running.
Just 31,100 people applied for a course for 2024, down from 33,570 last year, 41,220 in 2022 and 46,040 in 2021."

So:
we've lost all our access to EU-trained nurses,
we have a 35% drop over a couple of years in people enrolling to be trained to be nurses
the NHS has a shortage of over 42,000 nurses

Yes, obviously, we're looking to Asia to fill the gap. According to the UK's Nursing and Midwifery Council, Indian nurses now total about 50,000, up from about 18,000 a few years back

www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fcms-image-bucket-production-ap-northeast-1-a7d2.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com%2Fimages%2F_aliases%2Farticleimage%2F8%2F7%2F7%2F7%2F46197778-1-eng-GB%2F20230707-UK-nurses-by-origin-Line.png?source=nar-cms

Up till now that means all those post-Brexit nurses have also been allowed to bring their spouses, as well as their children.

And, just anecdotally, one of my sisters (who is a hospital nurse) says that in her hospital, where there's been a large number of new Asian nurses last year, about half are now on maternity leave (and some are arranging to move to Australia when their maternity period finishes and they've got the necessary months - the UK counts for Australia so some see it as a stepping stone to where they wanted to be in the first place)

This is NOT to say the Portuguese nurses are any better than Indian nurses, say. Simply that this is what is happening, the numbers are not working and this is not what was promised (pre Brexit or by politicians irregardless of Brexit)

There is another story along with this though Coup. The younger generation (Millennials or whatever tag are put on them) simply do not wish to do these types of jobs. Each generation wants more than the one before but this current crop have taken leave of all reality (in my opinion!) of what they are entitled to and what they should be expected to give. There are many factors that go into this and I am not going to get on my soapbox but, the number of British people looking to nursing as a career choice will continue to decline regardless of which political party is in power. I accept where the shortfall is made up from may seem the issue but the reasons why things are like this is a far bigger one in my opinion

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Blue_Belle wrote:
Aussie seems the place to be - we're in a severe midwife shortage as they go over there, as well as people in my expat groups who want to come here just to move other there.

And to be honest, we might eventually go there too since the UK isn't very welcoming.

Lots of our doctors headed that way too - pay and conditions are better not to mention the weather. A friends daughter with a degree in Nursery Nursing was on rubbish money here, shes currently in Australia, works 3 days a week and on ~40k (assuming AUD)

Sorry you find the UK unwelcoming - my neighbour who is Polish says he feels the same, especially post Brexit hmm

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Elegant Point wrote:
Blue_Belle wrote:
Aussie seems the place to be - we're in a severe midwife shortage as they go over there, as well as people in my expat groups who want to come here just to move other there.

And to be honest, we might eventually go there too since the UK isn't very welcoming.
Lots of our doctors headed that way too - pay and conditions are better not to mention the weather. A friends daughter with a degree in Nursery Nursing was on rubbish money here, shes currently in Australia, works 3 days a week and on ~40k (assuming AUD)
Sorry you find the UK unwelcoming - my neighbour who is Polish says he feels the same, especially post Brexit

And Blue Belle is Scottish as well, (her partner is Kiwi, I think, is that correct, Blue Belle?) so makes that quite a stark comment and a sad indictment of where we are at.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

This made me giggle.

twitter.com/GreenJJNews/status/1759555736625938490

Blue_Belle · Strong Club Player

JonH comes home wrote:
Elegant Point wrote:
Blue_Belle wrote:
Aussie seems the place to be - we're in a severe midwife shortage as they go over there, as well as people in my expat groups who want to come here just to move other there.

And to be honest, we might eventually go there too since the UK isn't very welcoming.
Lots of our doctors headed that way too - pay and conditions are better not to mention the weather. A friends daughter with a degree in Nursery Nursing was on rubbish money here, shes currently in Australia, works 3 days a week and on ~40k (assuming AUD)
Sorry you find the UK unwelcoming - my neighbour who is Polish says he feels the same, especially post Brexit
And Blue Belle is Scottish as well, (her partner is Kiwi, I think, is that correct, Blue Belle?) so makes that quite a stark comment and a sad indictment of where we are at.

Correct - we don't earn and may not earn the new threshold (despite my partner upskilling) for coming back over which is ideally where we would like to be rather than NZ. So it may be easier to go over to Aus.

christ · Futures qualifying

Medicine used to be a vocation. The politics of envy have been working over decades to turn it into just another job (a highly qualified job, but a job with unions, rules, and masses of layers of management - in the interests of "quality"). Then it should come as no surprise that people no longer see "helping their fellow man" as their main priority, "money" is their main priority. This leads to idiocy like the mathematically insane "junior" doctors strike.

The genie is out of the bottle, there is no easy road to recover.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Shhh wrote:
Coup Droit wrote:
Apparently:

"Ucas data published this week showed that applications for UK nursing degree courses were down for the third year running.
Just 31,100 people applied for a course for 2024, down from 33,570 last year, 41,220 in 2022 and 46,040 in 2021."

So:
we've lost all our access to EU-trained nurses,
we have a 35% drop over a couple of years in people enrolling to be trained to be nurses
the NHS has a shortage of over 42,000 nurses

Yes, obviously, we're looking to Asia to fill the gap. According to the UK's Nursing and Midwifery Council, Indian nurses now total about 50,000, up from about 18,000 a few years back

www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/https%3A%2F%2Fcms-image-bucket-production-ap-northeast-1-a7d2.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com%2Fimages%2F_aliases%2Farticleimage%2F8%2F7%2F7%2F7%2F46197778-1-eng-GB%2F20230707-UK-nurses-by-origin-Line.png?source=nar-cms

Up till now that means all those post-Brexit nurses have also been allowed to bring their spouses, as well as their children.

And, just anecdotally, one of my sisters (who is a hospital nurse) says that in her hospital, where there's been a large number of new Asian nurses last year, about half are now on maternity leave (and some are arranging to move to Australia when their maternity period finishes and they've got the necessary months - the UK counts for Australia so some see it as a stepping stone to where they wanted to be in the first place)

This is NOT to say the Portuguese nurses are any better than Indian nurses, say. Simply that this is what is happening, the numbers are not working and this is not what was promised (pre Brexit or by politicians irregardless of Brexit)
There is another story along with this though Coup. The younger generation (Millennials or whatever tag are put on them) simply do not wish to do these types of jobs. Each generation wants more than the one before but this current crop have taken leave of all reality (in my opinion!) of what they are entitled to and what they should be expected to give. There are many factors that go into this and I am not going to get on my soapbox but, the number of British people looking to nursing as a career choice will continue to decline regardless of which political party is in power. I accept where the shortfall is made up from may seem the issue but the reasons why things are like this is a far bigger one in my opinion

So why are the younger generation in Portugal etc still happy to go into nursing? (I see that their numbers are up 3% y-o-y). They have the same Millennials.

I think it's rather facile, I'm afraid, to say it'll be the same whichever party is in power

We don't know that. We've only had one party in power for the last 15 years - and in those years, the numbers have fallen off the cliff

Now it might be the same with another party, true - but it might not.

The only thing that is 100% certain is that it's like this with this party.

Blue_Belle · Strong Club Player

Re: "kids these days" (posts too long to quote)

I've worked with placing students at uni for midwifery. They would beg for shifts as they need a certain amount of clinical hours each year but then no show or then email later on saying they now couldn't do the shift or the shift was too far away or the timing (that they often chose!) didn't work out.

My friend who works in a Scottish uni with students on a teaching course says similar - that they are entitled. They want the pay and the status without putting in the work.

Re vocational courses in general: crazy idea but perhaps giving them proper funding for doing these courses would go a way into getting the numbers up. Hard to do these courses and work in order to try to survive. I've heard from my friend in the teaching course as above say that some students sleep on floors and so on during placements/term time and then go home on the weekends.

Edit: when I've worked in other student related departments, again, there's questions of - can you give me more marks, a longer deadline, an easier exam/assignment. I didn't know I was cheating by literally copying every single word without a reference.

-- Edited by Blue_Belle on Tuesday 20th of February 2024 06:24:53 AM

Lambda · Futures level

As a data analyst, I have to interject, to say it can be misleading to quote selective statistics without putting them in context. During the pandemic, in 2021, there was a 32% increase in applications to nursing, largely, I suspect, because of the higher profile of nursing. The increase in applications also coincided with the announcement of a £5,000 grant that received media attention (that I believe can still be applied for). There was a small drop off in applications in 2022 but still almost 20% higher than before the pandemic. It should be noted that applications from 18 year olds which account for about 25% of applications stayed level at 12,400 between 2021 and 2022. In 2023 and 2024, as covid no longer dominated our headlines, those increases have been unwound and applications have returned to similar numbers to before the pandemic, albeit slightly below.

Applications from 17 year olds are small, but are higher than before the pandemic (160 compared with 120 in 2020; peaked at 190 in 2022). For 18 year olds they're at the same level than 2020 (9,610 now compared with 9,630 in 2020). It's older age groups, in particular those aged 25 and over, where the level of applications have fallen greatest compared with 2020.

If applications continue to decline then there may be a story in nursing becoming less appealing, but in my view the story at the moment is the unwinding of the covid effect and there is no evidence that it is any less appealing to school-leavers than before the pandemic.

-- Edited by Lambda on Tuesday 20th of February 2024 07:04:42 AM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Blue_Belle wrote:
Re: "kids these days" (posts too long to quote)

I've worked with placing students at uni for midwifery. They would beg for shifts as they need a certain amount of clinical hours each year but then no show or then email later on saying they now couldn't do the shift or the shift was too far away or the timing (that they often chose!) didn't work out.

My friend who works in a Scottish uni with students on a teaching course says similar - that they are entitled. They want the pay and the status without putting in the work.

Re vocational courses in general: crazy idea but perhaps giving them proper funding for doing these courses would go a way into getting the numbers up. Hard to do these courses and work in order to try to survive. I've heard from my friend in the teaching course as above say that some students sleep on floors and so on during placements/term time and then go home on the weekends.
Edit: when I've worked in other student related departments, again, there's questions of - can you give me more marks, a longer deadline, an easier exam/assignment. I didn't know I was cheating by literally copying every single word without a reference.

-- Edited by Blue_Belle on Tuesday 20th of February 2024 06:24:53 AM

A friend who is a Law lecturer at a top London uni said to me that you would assume, quite rightly, that Law students at a tip-top London uni are the cream of British youngsters (in terms of academics) and that Law students in particular are extremely able with words. And yet, how many students, he said, do you think are officially registered with us as having dyslexia/other reading/writing disorder that gives extra time in exams? About 28%, he said. Unbelievable. I realise it might be unfair on the (tiny amount) of genuine sufferers, but if it were marked as an * on their final degree certificates, for future solicitors' firms to see, the number who absolutely plummet.

I know another law guy at another place who said that, on average, over 80% of students are given extensions for their assignments. Similarly, I know one student at Oxford (!) who got five extensions - with no cap on the final mark (and with zero justification).

But it's not just the students. Again, one law guy was being put under great pressure from the Principal of the uni to be 'nicer' to the students. To 'help' them with the exams. The Principal didn't want foreign students to get the idea that this uni was 'hard'. Now, the law guy already did practice sessions before the exams. But these weren't 'helpful' enough, apparently. So, law questions are often problem questions i.e. Jane was walking down the street when Andy, who suddenly suffered an epileptic fit after not taking his meds, crashed into her..... etc etc.

So, effectively, all the students at the practice session were walked through practice questions as above. And when they went into the exam, the questions was: Bobby was walking down the street when Joanna, who suddenly suffered an epileptic fit after not taking her meds, crashed into him.

Literally.

Var · Club Coach

Coup Droit wrote:
Blue_Belle wrote:
Re: "kids these days" (posts too long to quote)

I've worked with placing students at uni for midwifery. They would beg for shifts as they need a certain amount of clinical hours each year but then no show or then email later on saying they now couldn't do the shift or the shift was too far away or the timing (that they often chose!) didn't work out.

My friend who works in a Scottish uni with students on a teaching course says similar - that they are entitled. They want the pay and the status without putting in the work.

Re vocational courses in general: crazy idea but perhaps giving them proper funding for doing these courses would go a way into getting the numbers up. Hard to do these courses and work in order to try to survive. I've heard from my friend in the teaching course as above say that some students sleep on floors and so on during placements/term time and then go home on the weekends.
Edit: when I've worked in other student related departments, again, there's questions of - can you give me more marks, a longer deadline, an easier exam/assignment. I didn't know I was cheating by literally copying every single word without a reference.

-- Edited by Blue_Belle on Tuesday 20th of February 2024 06:24:53 AM
A friend who is a Law lecturer at a top London uni said to me that you would assume, quite rightly, that Law students at a tip-top London uni are the cream of British youngsters (in terms of academics) and that Law students in particular are extremely able with words. And yet, how many students, he said, do you think are officially registered with us as having dyslexia/other reading/writing disorder that gives extra time in exams? About 28%, he said. Unbelievable. I realise it might be unfair on the (tiny amount) of genuine sufferers, but if it were marked as an * on their final degree certificates, for future solicitors' firms to see, the number who absolutely plummet.
I know another law guy at another place who said that, on average, over 80% of students are given extensions for their assignments. Similarly, I know one student at Oxford (!) who got five extensions - with no cap on the final mark (and with zero justification).
But it's not just the students. Again, one law guy was being put under great pressure from the Principal of the uni to be 'nicer' to the students. To 'help' them with the exams. The Principal didn't want foreign students to get the idea that this uni was 'hard'. Now, the law guy already did practice sessions before the exams. But these weren't 'helpful' enough, apparently. So, law questions are often problem questions i.e. Jane was walking down the street when Andy, who suddenly suffered an epileptic fit after not taking his meds, crashed into her..... etc etc.
So, effectively, all the students at the practice session were walked through practice questions as above. And when they went into the exam, the questions was: Bobby was walking down the street when Joanna, who suddenly suffered an epileptic fit after not taking her meds, crashed into him.
Literally.

I have just retired as a senior lecturer at a North Midlands University. We gave no remission after a resit except at the discretion of the board. After that students were withdrawn. I dont recognise this leniency TBH. We had a high proportion of SEN students, all of which have gone on to hold down good jobs or start their own businesses. I have noticed a deterioration in standards over the years. Unfortunately many students pay the fees and forget about the study needed. That said, many are still suffering the effects of Covid which did impact their education,although this years intake seem to be more engaged.

-- Edited by Var on Tuesday 20th of February 2024 08:48:15 AM

-- Edited by Var on Tuesday 20th of February 2024 08:49:57 AM