Each week at work, we are sent a newsletter via email, it tends to tell us how much all of our work is valued, but that the financial picture remains very serious nay dire and that it is our responsibility to keep on saving. At the same time, we are told that some very important and more than likely expensive company has been called (or more likely sent) in to help identify if more money could be saved and if the processes already applied for money saving have been the right ones. At this rate, there could be a succession of different auditors and other financial experts all charging some great amount to tell the chief executive and her board that they either are (or are not) doing a great job there.

One of the results of all of this is that we can no longer order anything without it being approved by a director. Last week I heard about an admin person being refused a new cartridge for her printer, perhaps she is meant to write everything in long hand now or perhaps she just has to send everything by email (who knows). Our mileage claims will now be scrutinised by an assistant director and all invoices that come in have to be countersigned. The bottom line is obviously getting very serious, no one has yet suggested we work for free but you get the impression some bright spark will be suggesting it in the good ideas box very soon.

Very little education and training is going on right now. This is partly because we are in such a state of flux that we just haven’t organised much, but also because clinical services are under pressure, with the vacancy freeze now making teams extremely stretched. There is however once type of training that is meant to continue, and that is what is considered statutory and mandatory. These sessions include fire, health and safety and patient moving and handling sessions some of which should be updated annually. I have my own ideas about whether there is much point attending a session every year to tell you the same old stuff, but the organisation needs to do these things for reasons of insurance and governance and we must do as we are told. Suddenly though it is not so important, saving money is more important than a nurse updating her moving and handling training. Yes you have got it, we have been asked to look at the possibility of cancelling all training including that determined mandatory and indeed statutory if you count fire training. Firstly this will just move the problem to the next financial year, but what if something happens in the next few weeks and someone is injured, what liability will the trust be at by this kind of action. Finally though what kind of message does this kind of thing send out to the people working for this particular organisation – you can’t have a new ink cartridge, you can’t attend the training we consider at any other time as mandatory and any time now we might ask you to work for free. Who would want to work in a place like this?