[user104658]

Originally Posted by MTVN

What percentage of the nursing workforce is made up of RCN nurses who voted to reject the deal? I'd guess around 10%? They shouldn't be able to cause this level of disruption to vital care

The RCN is the biggest nursing-specific union by far (Unison I think is the biggest overall, but it's not nursing specific). A large number didn't vote at all of course but that's the nature of voting, you can't make any assumption about what choosing not to vote means, e.g. No government has ever gotten anywhere even close to 50% of a public vote if you include those who didn't vote at all.

But I guess you could also think of it this way; staffing levels are already on a knife edgeb(and in some places, failing massively). If 10-20% of the nursing workforce quit the job tomorrow and never went back... yes, it would cause absolute chaos in vital care services.

[In the Drunk Tank]

Originally Posted by Soldier Boy

The RCN is the biggest nursing-specific union by far (Unison I think is the biggest overall, but it's not nursing specific). A large number didn't vote at all of course but that's the nature of voting, you can't make any assumption about what choosing not to vote means, e.g. No government has ever gotten anywhere even close to 50% of a public vote if you include those who didn't vote at all.

But I guess you could also think of it this way; staffing levels are already on a knife edgeb(and in some places, failing massively). If 10-20% of the nursing workforce quit the job tomorrow and never went back... yes, it would cause absolute chaos in vital care services.

Well I think you can assume a certain level of ambivalence in the non-voters in a case like this i.e. they're unlikely to strongly support strike action. It's a bit more binary than general election voting.

There's always a lot of figures thrown around about how many nurses/doctors/etc are considering leaving their job to show how dire it is but I'd be interested to know how that compares to any other profession. In every workplace I've ever been it feels like half the people there would talk about leaving or wanting to leave but never would

No doubt things are in crisis though and it's a very bad situation. I don't really know what the answer is though

[user104658]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Well I think you can assume a certain level of ambivalence in the non-voters in a case like this i.e. they're unlikely to strongly support strike action. It's a bit more binary than general election voting.

There's always a lot of figures thrown around about how many nurses/doctors/etc are considering leaving their job to show how dire it is but I'd be interested to know how that compares to any other profession. In every workplace I've ever been it feels like half the people there would talk about leaving or wanting to leave but never would

No doubt things are in crisis though and it's a very bad situation. I don't really know what the answer is though

I don't think you can assume anything from ambivalence really, at least not any more than you can assume that a non-voter is fine with the status quo government (so "didn't vote" should be considered a vote for whoever is currently in power).

In terms of the staffing crisis, it's not really about people "moaning" about the job and considering leaving -- they ARE leaving. Quitting, retiring early, moving abroad... and the current job isn't attractive enough to bring in new staff. The understaffing isn't theoretical, it's already here and getting worse by the month.

[Oliver_W]

Originally Posted by MTVN

general election