Does anyone have experience/recommendation with regard to utilising agency staff or a 3rd party service provider with a view to carrying out a batch of planned maintenance on general medical electronic equipment.

Alternatively is anyone out there keen to come down to sunny Chichester and carry out the above for upto a month in the very near future?

Agency biomed techs are all excellent blokes and always come fully recommended! Properly briefed, they are very useful for one-off tasks of the type mentioned. What you should home in on is the hourly rate you will have to pay for their services. I assume you are in touch with all the well-known agents? I wouldn’t mind “wintering” in Chichester myself, but six-months or so is the usual period needed to make it all worthwhile, for all parties concerned (ie, it takes a few weeks for a guy to become au-fait, and a few more weeks for him to recover his re-location expenses).

Thanks Geoff, I'm aware of Capital & Durbin but just wanted to broaden it a bit or ideally get someone direct! I am however interested in a 3rd party service provider if anyone has experience of the like.

So what’s the perceived wisdom regarding the current crisis facing the NHS, I wonder? The forum appears uncharacteristically quiet about all this. The current mood seems to be very anti-agency staff. I’ve heard a whisper that there’s a moratorium on hiring agency people, regardless of whether there’s work piling up.

Hunkering-down, then, chaps? Or will permanent NHS biomeds be bucking-up a bit now that the fear of redundancy hangs over them? Is it the end of the road, then, for the agency engineer working in the Health Service?

Or, can we expect new opportunities once the “new drive for efficiency” kicks-in? After all, the kit is still there being used. And someone still has to fix it. Hope all you NHS guys have a nice Easter break. Take a rest – you need it. It all starts in earnest when you come back to work next week!

I suppose all us NHS Biomeds who need our ideas bucking up could always bugger off to the 3rd world for a bit of "Ex-Patting"
After all the only reason you do that is to benefit these impoverished countries, not work for high salaries-tax free, is it!

The hundreds, and potentially thousands, of people about to loose their jobs has more to do with financial mis-management and generally poor senior management.

Does the NHS have problems? - Yes
Are these staff losses due to instantaneous financial deficits? - No
How many organisations already gone public announcing staff reductions have also announced .." the board and Chief Exec have gone too.."? - none that I know of.
How many SHA's have shouldered some of the blame for allowing debts to build without acting sooner? - again none that I know of.

Is there a political agenda? - if there isn't it would be the first time the people at the sharp end aren't paying the price, you only have to look at the regionally adjusted budget figures to see where "politically apportioned" money goes.

Overlay the already announced areas of redundancies over a political map of the country to see if there isn't a political agenda.

I think, politically speaking, it's becoming increasingly difficult to justify employing itinerant workers, at a premium, when qualified Nurses and Clinicians, i.e. those in particular demand, are being made redundant along with others. In financial terms it's also an expensive way of employing fully qualified individuals since, I assume, a premium is paid to the recruitment agency and overheads are incurred in much the same way as for full-time qualified employees. Additonal to this many itinerants expect free board, lodgings and a telephone - or if not for free then at a significant discount to make it "worth their while".

try this

www.appletechnologies.co.uk

Hi tha_ans,

Neither of those jobs appear to be temporary agency work and one is for microbiology not medical engineering - not sure what your point is. Actually this last month or two (looking at Roevin, Capital, Durbin, NHS jobs, etc) I've seen a higher turnover of job adverts for fulltime employees, working in biomedical engineering in the NHS and private sector, than temporary agency work.

Maybe agency stuff is more word of mouth so there's not the need to advertise as much but from Geoff's comments I suspect there's been a bit of a downturn (or the pickings are not as rich). Capital recruitment have a requirement for all grades at the moment in Manchester. Das ist leben.

Hai Mr.R.J.Ling:

from the website, i understand they are third party service providers to NHS hospitals.

Ciao,

Probably - I wouldn't be surprised if they're continuing where others have failed to benefit.

Arrivederci.