Where are all the nurses?

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Mark Hedberg — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 21:50:05 GMT

Hi Dave! Great points here in the topic, and i enjoyed the skype call with you the other day! If I had one main recommendation, it would be to emphasize the strategic side of what this job entails; the day to day stuff is fairly self evident to a qualifed VN; what are their overall responsibilities, and what changes or issues are you wanting them to solve? What's the pain in your butt that this new person will be fixing for you?

THAT is declaring the challenge, and it will be what gets the candidates interested. Be specific; your job ad right now could be one of a dozen i see in VN times.

And definitely don't be coy about what you pay. Money might be why they look at you, but career progression and personal satisfaction is why they stay.

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Sophie Millar — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 17:45:16 GMT

I have sent you a CV today Dave :-)

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Biddy Aggy — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 14:18:14 GMT

As an RVN living in London salary is obviously very important. I'd definitely put that in as to be honest I tend to skim over any ad that doesn't state it, I've previously found that no salary listed = poor salary. As an example I still struggle monthly on 25.5k so I wouldn't be interested in anything under that in London.. I do also think nurses are worth more, which would be the easy solution to enticing them out of the woodwork, but that's a whole other story!

I'd also cut out the sections that others have mentioned. It all comes under 'general nursing duties' really. If you were placing an add for a vet you wouldn't really spell out "must be able to scrub up and perform a bitch spay".

Also hours, any OOH, weekends/nights etc expected. Holiday entitlement too.

It does come across as a nice friendly welcoming practice though so I think with a few tweaks you'd have a bit more interest.

Good luck!

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Alison Clare Hickman — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 10:38:41 GMT

Me too, since re-reading it!

There are lots of ad's out there that say must be 'hard-working' (well, yes, who would think a nurses job doesn't involve HARD WORK?!), must be 'enthusiastic' (about what precisely?!), 'dedicated' (read, works for nothing past her normal hours??), 'dynamic', (energetic? - suspect we ALL are after our AM blast of caffeine)... etc etc. I feel it's okay to use adjectives to describe what you want but you need to use some qualifiers to attach to them!

I like descriptors such as 'flexible' - means multi-tasking. Although a description of some of the flexibility requirements would be good to hear, 'motivated' - means wants to progress/pushes forwards - again, a description of what this means exactly e.g. funded CPD, creating nurse-led clinics?

Enough of me now. Going off to be dedicated, dynamic and hard-working.

Ali h

RE: Where are all the nurses?

WelshyNurse — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 09:25:58 GMT

I agree Celine.

It sounds a little like stating the obvious.

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Celine — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 09:02:25 GMT

If I may play Devil's advocate...

The ad on the whole is nice, and I appreciate the message you're trying to get across - that you take your nurse's role seriously and expect them to be a valued member of the team. But as a nurse who has been around for a little while I thought maybe you were making much of the job description

You will need to be prepared and available for operations, give safe, reliable care of the animals before, during and after operations and make sure all instruments, materials and drugs are prepared and ready.

You will need to keep all of our patients safe and healthy before, during and after procedures, restraining animals so that the vet has the required access and, very importantly, that the animal is comfortable. (No need to worry about the vet, they can take care of themselves.)

We like our patients to wake up safely after each procedure so you will be responsible for ensuring anaesthetics are carried out safely. This includes making sure the equipment is working and ready for all procedures, the animal is correctly connected to anaesthetic equipment, the anaesthesia level maintained and the animal recovers safely.

It will also be part of your duties to keep any infections contained and make sure all areas, equipment and material are kept clean.

Erm, I'm afraid to me this is a bit like telling someone who doesn't know what a VN is what the job entails! It's a bit like saying "We expect you to come to work and be a veterinary nurse". A bit like saying "And we expect you to remember to go for a wee before we start surgery so you don't get caught short" haha

I'm not trying to be negative at all and I appreciate that you've come to the VN community to ask for our feedback so that's the only reason I commented - as an experienced RVN I'd maybe be a little put off worried that your vets would be looking over my shoulder the whole time thinking they had to oversee everything I did. Personally I'd cut that entire 3 paragraphs down to one sentence saying something like "We expect you to be responsible for the running and maintenance of our equipment, monitoring and recovery of anaesthesia and care of hospitalised patients."

But maybe that's just me!

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Dave Nicol — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 11:24:11 GMT

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I'll take these points on board and review the advert. In the meantime I appreciate all of your time spent in replying. ;)

Dave.

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Sal the 1st — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 10:58:57 GMT

[quote user="nickyc"]

As an RVN.. I would want to know hours, OOH's, night duties, holidays etc and salary in the ad. To save me having to contact for further details. Many practices still have a poor work life balance and pay scale., so I would want to rapidly exclude these practices, and not waste everyone's time by having to apply then finding out the hours/pay etc doesn't suit. To be honest there just is not enough RVN's to fill the positions. We are also a small well equipped practice in London with good pay/life balance, and it took us 8 months to fill our RVN position last year. We also could't get a locum nurse to cover holiday late last year either, so everyone is in the same boat. Other then the bits I've mentioned your advert comes across well you just need to be patient...

[/quote]

There will never be enough qualifieds to fill positions until the training is sorted out and retention of qualified nurses is improved - and until people stop seeing the vn qualification as a stepping stone to something else that isnt ever going to happen.

Vets - start taking more interest in what you want the nurse training to be and how you might want it to be achieved instead of what is presented to you and you might just end up with more nurses

RE: Where are all the nurses?

nickyc — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 18:09:56 GMT

RE: Where are all the nurses?

enigmaticat-uk — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 16:58:05 GMT

I think your job ad is grand, my suspicion would be that not many people can afford to live in London on a typical VN wage, even with London weighting, housing costs are so high there.

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Alison Clare Hickman — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 13:15:19 GMT

Hi,

Just a thought... maybe consider assisting with relocation expenses for the right candidate? You can cast your net further that way...

Ali h

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Tania Ford — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 12:51:53 GMT

Love your ad and if i was living anywhere near, would apply at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately im miles away and not looking to relocate. Put simply, there just arent enough RVN's around for the amount of jobs out there. As someone had said previously, money is a great incentive as well as good work/life balance and it is about time us RVN's were paid what they are worth, but sadly this is not the case in most practices. Its worth looking at the SPVS nurses salary survey to make sure you are offering what is average for your area. If this situation continues, we will end up exactly where we were back in the '80's' when there were very few qualified nurses out there and most practices were staffed by 'lay' people. That said, at the time there was no problem with that and I worked for 25 years as a 'nurse' before qualifying. The only way i think this will change is if they change the RVN syllabus to be more practical orientated and also re evaluate how much it actually costs to train nurses, as this is a huge factor now when considering entering into the profession. A lot of nurses are coming through the system either through the diploma or degree route and then realising that it is not for them and changing their career path. This is very sad as this job should be a 'vocation' and not 'just a job'. My hope is that things will change, but until something is done about training and pay-scales, unfortunately there will always now be a nurse shortage :(

Good luck in your search and if you decide to open a practice in the South West (Bristol to be exact!) I will come running to your doorstep! lol

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Charmaloo88 — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 12:19:31 GMT

Funnily enough I saw this as and loved it! I'm looking for perm work and this definitely caught my eye but you're just too far a commute for me. Also a salary range normally grabs more attention as well (can't remember if this was mentioned on original ad)

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Dave Nicol — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 09:59:46 GMT

Well, you asked for it....

Compassionate, organised & fun RVN who wants to reach for the sky

Are one of those amazing nurses who likes to organise things and work efficiently?

Do you have compassion for the animals and (even more amazingly) still keep everyone around you smiling (even on the tough days)?

Do you want to develop your skills to include taking X-rays, doing dentals, placing IVs, anaesthetics and performing laboratory work?

Would you like to work in a fresh, dynamic and enthusiastic vet team that cares about each other as well as the pets?

Are you fed up of the same drudge of just cleaning and falling asleep watching anaesthetics?

Do you love creating order where none existed before?

If then read on, this could well be the role for you…

About us

[Blank Vets] have been around for over 10 years, but is now under new independent ownership and we are working hard to become the vet of choice in our area.

We are like a GPs family practice and are here to help the local community and their pets. We are just as passionate about keeping pets well as we are about fixing them when they get sick. So we talk about wellness a lot. We like to do our jobs to a high standard and have fun and we now need a nurse to help us on our journey.

An upgrade of our equipment to include digital radiography, digital dental radiography, iM3 dental station, idexx onsite lab, ultrasound, anaesthesia monitoring and new autoclave has been completed. In the coming weeks the building will receive an upgrade too. So we need someone to join us and help get our procedures in place so that everything runs smoothly and the animals are safe while under our care.

Key duties

It will also be part of your duties to keep any infections contained and make sure all areas, equipment and material are kept clean.

This role is growing quickly and if you don't already have the skills, we'll be training you to be able to place all of our catheters, intubate animals, take X-rays and scale/polish/radiograph our dental patients.

There is much more we could say but we'd love the chance to speak to you directly. We're pretty sure our passion for taking this practice forward is more infectious that kennel cough. We'd love to share it with you - our passion for the role (not the kennel cough).

We can offer a very competitive salary, a supportive, fun work culture, leadership training/development and an unlimited CPD training budget for the right person.

Interested? - then get in touch to find out more.

If you’ve managed to read all this and you are still interested then please send your CV and cover letter explaining why you are our next vet nurse to .....

(i dropped out the location and contact stuff as more than likely that breaks forum rules, but the full ad is across on the job board.)

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Mark Hedberg — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 09:54:37 GMT

oh, and show us the ad, how would we know if it's crap or not! ;)

RE: Where are all the nurses?

Mark Hedberg — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 09:53:27 GMT

Hi Dave! 12k nurses; 5500 practices. So any place that has more than 2.2 nurses, someone doesn't have one. Also, due to the shortage, paying rock bottom wages isn't attractive anymore. barely 2000 practices are training practices, and as nursing is a 2-4 year course, that doesn't mean 2000 nurses qualify each year. It's barely enough to make up for attrition.

Drop me a line if you want to talk more!