Staffing levels
I have about staff levels within Pathology for the last couple months. The trigger for my train of thought was the news that nurses will have to get a degree. The initial concerns were that degree educated nurses would not want to get their hands dirty doing the routine tasks in the job. It seems that Wales have already made the nursing profession a degree level profession. And it seems that concerns about ‘too posh to wash‘ have not materialised.
This concern about a graduate level profession got me thinking about the change within biomedical science. Has the change to a degree level profession meant people were unwilling to do the routine tasks? In my experience, I have not met anyone who felt that certain tasks were beneath them. But I get to start thinking are were now producing more biomedical scientists than available posts?
Considering the number of Universitys that run a BMS degree, there must be a signifiicant number of people entering the profession each year. But labs still seem to be short of staff. Is this mainly due to purse strings being drawn ever tighter or a lack of suitable candidates? From a candidates point of view, I would be reluctant to apply for a job which I have seen repeatedly advertised. Likewise, a lab would not want the extra cost of advertising month after month. I do wonder what will happen to labs once the highly skilled staff start to retire if there truly is a recruitment problem.
Please feel free to let me know about your thoughts about staff ing in Pathology.