What is important to you – feedback on the BNMS survey (workforce!)

Thank you so much for those of you who managed to find time to fill it in our membership survey. I know from experience that completing these surveys can be a bit of a bind and with so many demands on our time, it’s not always our top priority. So it is wonderful to get so many responses.

Something that is important but not always done well is making sure those who complete surveys see some feedback or action, so I thought I’d try and give you a little bit of both.

Overwhelmingly the most challenging part of our jobs is staff, time, workload and budget. This is not a surprise, I’m sure. Many of us are keeping our services running in the face of staffing shortages, difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff. Covering sickness is also a big issue. Lack of time and competing demands causes stress and many of us feel under constant pressure to scan patients faster in the face of the staffing challenges so many of us face.

Some of us also find the challenges around ageing infrastructure and radiopharmaceutical supply problems add more pressure and poor management is a problem for some. The regulatory burden on us is high and keeping up with this can be difficult. Lack of statutory Technologist registration is another concern as is career progression and training.

This paints a pretty grim picture and I really want to try and do something about at least some of it. I wish I could wave a magic wand and improve things for us, but the issues are complex, are not unique to Nuclear Medicine and have been going on for some time. So difficult to fix and certainly not quick.

However, having read your feedback, I feel we have to try and do something. To this end, BNMS have set up a task force within our Council to look at our workforce issues and consider what we can do to help.

The issues aren’t the same for all professional groups, so the task force has representation from all of them. However, there will be some overlap, so working together is the right way to progress. For example, even if we improve the arrangements for training, we need to make sure potential trainees are aware of us. We are a small specialty and from my experience of going into schools to talk to students about careers, typically they know of very few outside of doctors, nurses, midwives (probably because they’ve watched Call the midwife) and physiotherapists. So, we need to market ourselves and get the information out to the right people. At the same time, we don’t need lots of applicants (although wouldn’t it be lovely to have too many?)

Apprenticeships have the potential to be helpful, but the funding model for these can work against us, since you often need a vacancy to fund an apprentice and when you have a vacancy, the remaining staff may not have much time to train an apprentice.

The Scientist Training Programme is great – I have certainly found this to be the case in Radiopharmacy and I’m sure this is the same for many of you. However, this course may not be suitable for all applicants. We need people who are practical and hands on to care directly for our patients and to make the radiopharmaceuticals for us to give to our patients. In both in Nuclear Medicine and Radiopharmacy we have big gaps in our Practitioner workforce.

We used to have more Nuclear Medicine nurses, but they are getting harder and harder to find. When you think of it, Nuclear Medicine hours are often very favourable for those with families (and for those without, to be honest!) as there may be no weekend working, for example. So, I’m often surprised there isn’t more interest in our positions when we advertise them. Maybe the radiation puts people off. If this is the case, we need to try to educate people. Because there are risks in many other jobs – try being a sea fisherman. It’s very risky! If you’ve ever watched those extreme sea fisherman documentaries, you’ll already know this. They carry a 1 in 500 risk apparently, compared to our 1 in 15,0000 risk with a 2mSv radiation exposure (according to a well-known physicist I know).

So what can we do about it? The BNMS Task Force are going to meet outside of Council to develop an action plan and we have made workforce a regular standing agenda item for Council to discuss and track its progress each time we meet. I will make sure we keep you updated on what we are discussing and how we are progressing. I’m not sure yet what the best way of doing this is, but I want to have something in place before I finish my term as President, so I will let you know what that is going to look like once I know. (Please remember we volunteer our time on top of our day jobs, but I can promise you we’ll do our best.)

One thing which we have been working on for some time is statutory Technologist registration and after a long time getting nowhere, we have recently seen some progress. Following a letter written by IPEM to the NHS guardian, both IPEM and BNMS are working together on this and BNMS have now prepared a paper to go to the DHSC, supported by the UK Health Security Agency. We have put together a strong argument and it feels like the time may be right to get somewhere on this finally.

The benefits in terms of professional standing and patient safety are significant. The role of the Nuclear Medicine Technologist has developed a lot, with many of you reporting, processing scans, administering therapy doses and consenting patients, for example. You should not be limited in what you can achieve and certainly should be of an equal standing to registered Radiographer colleagues doing similar roles.

However, it is not all bad news. There are many things you find rewarding about working in Nuclear Medicine. Being involved in research, making changes for the better, supporting colleagues and working within a team are all things you have said you enjoy. So, for those of you who manage other people, this is good to bear in mind. Whether it be getting more of your team involved in research or involving them in making changes to improve your service, being a part of positive things like this means a lot.

It was not a surprise to hear that much of your enjoyment of your job is related to helping our patients and providing a good service. We all come to work to help patients. It’s what we do and in our amazing Nuclear Medicine community we do it brilliantly. But another thing a lot of people mention as the most rewarding thing is how nice it is to be thanked. Taking the time to notice what other people are doing, to say thank you, and to mean it, is important.

So, in this festive edition, I’d like to finish by saying a big thank you to all of you. Thank you for all you do every day for your patients and for your colleagues. Thank you specifically from me for all you did to help with the recent Molybdenum shortage. We are all Nuclear Medicine’s biggest asset. Please remember that and be proud of what you achieve every day.

I hope those of you who celebrate it have a happy Christmas and those who don’t please enjoy a few days relaxation or time with friends and family. For me it will be bittersweet.  The first without mammy, but I am determined to enjoy some quality family time and to make the most of it with the people I care about. I hope you do the same. Until next time.

Ms Jilly Croasdale

BNMS President