UKH

So I am now out of work for the next few months, maybe all summer.

Are you of you in the NHS and know of any casual/ zero hours work in the NHS for someone non qualified? I can wipe bums, feed people, push trolleys, fetch and carry etc. Any idea what role that might be and where you would apply for it? I presume hospitals will need people for various tasks like this?

While this won't help your situation, I do wonder if this sort of work will be available for volunteers.

If there's no paid work then I probably would volunteer. I would hope the gov will make sure there is money for such staff though

As do I, it's very important to get people back into work who have lost jobs over this.

Contact your local Trust, they will have a Staff Bank that the trust will call upon as and when it is needed. Usually this is Admin roles but I suspect it will also be domestic roles as well.

I don’t know what will be offered by the NHS, but care homes and home visitors will almost definitely need additional staff. There is a Cumbrian home visit company actively recruiting , there may be something similar near you. I don’t know if they will accept the DBS you probably already hold, or if they will need their own or a higher level of certification. 

In reply to:

The other area where help could be needed, on a temp or volunteer basis is in childcare. 

Many parents working in the NHS will have to stop when the schools close. Looking after their children could help keep the NHS running. 

I suspect there will be loads of cleaning work appearing, employers won't want their skilled & relatively expensive staff spending time cleaning.

I can only look after kids in the setting of outdoor activities. If there is no bike or climbing involved, I have no idea what to do with them. I also prefer teenagers to small kids, and they are less likely to need childcare! I'm not the candidate for a childcare job!

Yes, that's worth a look. Likely to be something in our area.

"NHS jobs" is the website with all the roles on.

Unfortunately it's quite hard to get onto the Bank as an HCA.  You generally need to have done 6 months in a substantive role and so have completed the training. There are ways around this, depending on where you are.

"NHS Professionals" is one of the larger Bank providers, but their process is labarynthine.

Your best bet is to apply for an established role, get trained, and then move onto Bank.

I suspect a lot of "rules" may go by the wayside in coming days, so you might get to bypass some of the painful procedures!

My guess is that a lot of the volunteers in hospitals a retirees who really shouldn’t be there at this time. Just pop along and ask. 

Morrisons and Amazon are after people and they pay.

Critical work delivering stuff.

I heard about Morrisons, looks like they want permanent staff though. I need to leave it a little flexible incase any of my summer work does happen. 

I think that the government has something in the works for volunteers  based on the following paragraph from the coronavirus bill.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-bill-what-it-will-do...

I would expect some kind of announcement shortly.

Other aspects of the bill are less savoury.

Thought you needed the money??? Get  the job and pack it in in the summer.Flex itlater r when you know whats happening, it could be like this for way past the summer.

I have the luxury of still being paid for the work I had booked for another month, so I can be picky for now to see if I can something that suits. If I'm not finding anything then I can think about other ways of doing it. I could forsee some trips running and others not towards the end of the summer, so if I can get zero hours work then I can still fill in the empty weeks while doing my trips. 

Some ambulance trusts are recruiting via agencies for 111 operators.  

Any idea which agencies to look into for that? Or types of agencies at least?

Also in the spirit of one of today's other Coronavirus threads ...

If you're not squeamish about things, might be worth ringing around local undertakers to see if they want extra staff.

I could probably find out for Wales if that helps, but not sure otherwise. Might be worth emailing your local ambulance trust.

I suspect at my stage of life I might just qualify as a gravedigger!

In what sense?

Turn your TV on (BBC1) or watch it later in iPlayer.

Start of 1830 BBC Scottish News said "army of volunteers needed by NHS".

Information is very hard to come by. The government says it's going to pass legislation to allow retired NHS staff to return to work.

Sounds like it's worth waiting a couple of weeks and keeping an eye on changes. I am getting paid for the work I had booked in for the next month so in a very fortunate position of being able to hang on a bit

Good on you....

If you contact your local nhs trusts there will be a nursing bank....there are likely to be opportunities for health care support workers and you will be greatly appreciated. 

(ABR...nhs clinical lead and currently organising lots to do with covid 19)

Great thread. I've been pondering the same. I'm a PhD student but am seeking a temporary suspension as, unsurprisingly, people aren't currently that interested in being interviewed about their organisation's use of climate projections for adaptation. Plus, in the face of all this shitness, my project feels a bit insignificant. Some part time casual work in an area that helps people feels like it would be a better use of my time over the next few months.

All clinical staff in the NHS doing cleaning work.

This is worth a go. The care home I volunteer for have had to cancel all their external activities people, and are also desperately short of staff. I qualify as an (unpaid) employee as I've been through the employment process, so I am now activities assistant when I can make it as I'm still on full time work. If this is for you, go for a home which has residential patients, as you'll find it difficult to interact with the dementia ones. I'll be a lot happier when better testing is available, but we are in front of the viral tsunami here atm so it's less vital right now.

In a month's time you might be competing with millions, we'll know by pay day. If you need it for the coming months I'd act fast. Good luck.

jk

Another thought. 

Anyone over a certain age (approx 40) should enquire about delivery driver roles as you have an advantage as you can drive larger vehicles without further driving tests. Anyone younger than that will struggle to get the C1 category soon enough.

A platoon of people who’ve never driven a 7.5 tonner before suddenly all doing so at once doesn’t sound like the best way to reduce the load on the NHS

Mate of mine owns a Care for the Elderly business supporting people in the community. There are loads of jobs going at the moment, cannot get enough staff.

Try that.

Its not just the NHS who needs help.

Jasper Carrott in 1981 on lorry driving (go to 34:15):

youtube.com/watch?v=Vm5wrdIf2ng&

Pttt ssshhhhh.

I am a ward manager in the NHS. What most trusts are doing is shutting down our corporate side,(finance, HR, management, etc), and training those people to support front line services.

Even working as a temporary care assistant will require training in personal care, feeding,

moving and handling, information governance, infection control, etc.

Plus any external staff will require a clean DBS which is why we are using our own staff.

Just spoke to the Trust I use to work for. They hope to bring me as a HCA as my NMC registration has run out. I last worked in a Neonatal Unit. Retired 2.5 years but you don't forget how to do things. The governments emergency Covid-19 bill should allow this. PM said DBS checks are to put through in 24 hours. Definitely time to cut the crap, trust each other and pull together.

Missed it by a couple of years!

However, Iceland were advertising zero hours driver position which just uses transits so I have stuck an application in there. 

Nice one.

Age isn't directly relevant, though you would have to be at least 41 now I think. 

The rules changed on Jan 1st 1997, so you would have to have passed your driving test (in a car) before then to have automatic entitlement to drive up to 7.5t.

The rules were changed with good reason though really.  You might well have been fine but in general people just jumping in a 7.5 tonner and away with no further training since they'd learned to drive a car always was a bit of a recipe for disaster.

Best of luck with the Iceland gig.

I agree jumping into a 7.5 tonner would not be ideal, but there is a big difference between a just over 3.5 t and the full limit of 7.5 t. 

Most of the delivery vans are similar to ambulances, and therefore are presumably largely automatic.  These are remarkably easy to drive and as they are boxy with a short bonnet suprisingly easy to manoeuvre (you should have seen the predicament I got myself into and then out of on the way to a job on Sunday, commited to a country lane which got tighter and tighter, between hedges/banks/tree with wing mirror folded in, didn't realise until i was gently wedged that the tree lent in just slightly higher up making the gap for the top of the ambulance a little smaller and we have blue lights on the side of the ambulance, very long reverse but no damage done).  

Supermarkets are fast track recruiting now.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/19/british-supermarkets-draft-in...

A young family member (18) who has lost their job at a cafe has just got two though the online recruitment process for Aldi.