Job Descriptions and workforce allocation

[Stephen Umney]

Hi everyone,

My name is Stephen Umney, I'm a senior tech in Brighton (since 2014) having started my career as a junior in 2009.

As the title of this kind of suggests, I am after some information from whomever is able to.

Firstly, can anyone share with me as many job descriptions Bands 4 through 8 please as we are updating ours due to Trust changes and anticipated staff turnover? Any help would be great and might be nice to try and bring a more nationally recognised JD for the relevant bands!

Secondly, I would like to know some staffing levels at which bands and covering how many of what equipment.... if that makes sense!?

I know that back in 2016 Gerry Boyle actually undertook this research, but I'd imagine it is now vastly out of date, given that our machine numbers have most definitely increased!

Again any information would be fantastic as I'm trying to get through the JD's especially before the unit manager (who gave me the nod) retires in June.

Thanks for your time!

[Ian Wilde]

Hi Stephen,

I have a few that I have collected over the years and happy to share.  They are a few years old now but I suppose the job and contents are likely to have not changed too much.

For staffing levels there are many variables, geographical area you cover, the amount of satellites, the amount pf spare machine capacity, whether you have a home program or an on-call rota.  There is no one size fits all rule.

[Stephen Umney]

Hi Ian,

Thankyou. Yes I appreciate that they may be slightly outdated, but honestly anything would be helpful and I'm more than happy to share back anything if that would be helpful the other way!

Again yes I appreciate that staffing level needs would vary for all of those reasons and possibly more including any contracts utilised to provide additional cover.

As I've asked without giving our info I'll give you a rough guide as to what the levels are here:
We have 1 band 7 (which used to be band 8) due to retire in 2025, 3 band 6's due to retire in 2030 (however has made clear his intentions to retire early, most likely 26/27 at a guess), 2032 and myself (I'm 34), as well as a band 4 junior who started last August (he is 35).

We currently cover 1 main site (RSCH) which has 3 Gambro 106H CWP's that we completely cover and 2 satellite units, Bexhill which has 2 Gambro 103H CWP's that we cover and Worthing which has a very old Gambro HH that is on contract. The Department also uses 2 private units in Crawley and Polegate which we do not cover.

We currently cover 126 Nipro Surdial X machines in units, we also cover 36 B.Braun Dialog + units for home dialysis. The Trust also owns 14 Physidia machines which we don't currently cover, however management is discussing coming under us in the near future. We cover approx 60 single patient Purite Centurian cold RO units as did have a larger home patient population whilst we were running Fresenius 4008's. We cover the whole of Brighton and Hove as well as East and West Sussex.

We do have an on call which is predominantly done by myself and 1 other member of staff (although the band 7 and other band 6 are technically included in but shop it out to my colleague) Our on call rates are £10.68 per week day and £60 per weekend day/bank holiday, which has been static since Agenda for Change.

The only reason I'm asking is that the Trust is insisting that we are adequately staffed and actually tried to (unsuccessfully so far) reduce our on call payments and seem to be ignoring upcoming retirement issues, so would like some positive information to aid our cause if possible.

Sorry for the long message, if anyone would like to reply direct to me my email is [e-mail].

Thankyou in advance!

[fraser gilmour]

Hi Stephen,
I'll send some JD's.
this might be useful also
https://ukkidney.org/sites/renal.org/files/FINAL-WFP-OCT-2020_compressed.pdf

[Stephen Umney]

Thankyou Fraser.

Yes have sent them this previously, their response is that these are only guidelines of course

Either way I appreciate anything from anyone so once again thankyou

[Ian Wilde]

I'm sure that recommendations are that if you are to offer an on-call service then there should be 3 people in it.  

I've also done 1 in 2 and it quickly began to erode my enthusiasm for the job being called out multiple times a week to deal with the acute service of ferrying machines around a large hospital as nursing staff refused to be involved.

The department was made up of a technical manager (B7) and 3 B6 techs.  We had around 200 machines in-centre and about 60 in the community and 7 water plants.  On-call when fully staffed was 1 in 4 and you had to work a Saturday.  The acute service ran 24/7 365.

Agenda for change seemed to screw up a lot of the roles it was supposed to harmonize meaning the working grade for a tech could be a 6 or a 7 depending on where you worked.

[Stephen Umney]

Yes agreed with the on call should be 3 participants. However our situation is a bit odd at present with the rota being 1 in 4 but my colleague does 3 in 4 and myself 1 in 4 with the odd covering whilst he is on leave. This is due to the B6 suggesting that he wanted to leave due to on call and the B7 has shopped out for years now... they are both the closest to retiring so we kind of make do for now anyway.

Fortunately our acute staff do actually move machines around without calling us out and our home patient population has decreased drastically over the past few years meaning it's considerably less "busy" on call than 5 years ago for example.

Yes I feel that hugely, as you probably know that cost of living down in Brighton is near on London prices, but without the band uplift or any weighting, which has eroded much enthusiasm for many down here especially seeing the real term cut in pay of around 25% since 2010.... Had a pint of Guinness the other day that cost me £6.40, so agree that AfC kind of screwed us around down here.

Anyway, aside from grumbling, I'd rather be more proactive at trying to get some better national framework in place for our Trust to work with at the very least and thankyou for sending those JD's

[Ian Wilde]

At those prices for a pint you need to call it a day and move up north Stephen!  The cheaper alcohol soon makes you forget about the weather

There are some roles that are hard to recruit into that receive an uplift and I always thought that renal technologists should have fallen into that group to try and attract people.

[Stephen Umney]

Hahaha tell me about it! I don't know, have visited the north and I definitely didn't approve of the weather...

Yeah, I quite agree that given the rarity of us it would definitely help with recruitment to have an uplift but given the current state of the NHS I can't see it happening any time soon!

[Ronan]

Hi all,

Would it be possible for me to be sent some of these JD's as well as some organisational charts?

I am a clinical engineering technician working in Antrim Area Hospital in Northern Ireland.

I am curious on the different ways renal techs are structured within Trusts as I have heard about different bandings of renal tech as well as how renal technical depts can be structured similar to ourselves (Integrated within Clinical Engineering), be separate from clinical/biomed engineering but still under the umbrella of estates or completely separate from estates and come under the Renal unit remit.

In our dept we are all B6 clinical engineering technicians, with 4 of our dept (there are 14 engineers total) trained in renal. We cover Baxter Artis Physio machines, Baxter Prismaflex and Baxter WRO300H machines (Maintenance and repair) and Baxter CWP 100 (First line troubleshooting only). We run a 1-in-4 on call rota. We do not cover any home dialysis as that is all under contract with Baxter throughout NI.

Thanks!

[Stephen Umney]

Hi Ronan,

Yes I'd be more than happy to send you what I have been sent.

What is your direct email address and I'll pop it across.

[Ronan]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks very much!
My email is [e-mail]

Thanks,
Ronan

[mike.jones]

I have some details and have been through this myself.

Drop me a mail

[e-mail]