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John,

Interesting point - where exactly do you see the "new blood" coming from with registration and all its requirements looming? Do you envisage engineering graduates joining the NHS on the low grades AfC might produce, or will they be recruited from the Clinical Engineering degree schemes which currently are not in existance?

It's a sad reflection on the numbers wishing to enter the profession. 10 years ago there were at least 2 or 3 specialised degree courses offering both part and full time. I think they were at Liverpool, Keele and Hatfield. Although these were patched together from some modules from the BEng in Electronics and some modules from the BSc in Human Physiology with a couple of specialised modules thrown in.

Now you can only do it as a MSc.

Get real guys, the "new blood" will be coming from Eastern Europe!

Even if the new blood comes from Eastern Europe, then they would still have to meet the educational standards stipulated in AfC, and be prepared to accept the accociated pay grades.

However, I recently read an article stating that getting a degree will not necessarily mean getting a better paid job, so graduates may be coming into the profession on lower pay grades simply because they cannot get a better paid job elsewhere.

Not so much that we need "new blood" as far as I interpret it John, just that we need to make sure we retain the majority who are currently in the job since they're the long-serving highly trained, skilled and qualified "backbone" of the service. These are the individuals that will be required to support "new blood" coming into the service and provide on the job training and supervision, whatever the requirement for academic qualifications and prior engineering experience of new starters.

Any more takers for the poll?

We need to get the new blood into the hospitals, plus keep hold of the old blood as well. In house training is best training you ever get.

VRCT will help make it harder to join this profession. Maybe some of us will have to find a new one.

It might be good to look at another thread about age , which was started a while . Find out who has just started and those who about to finish. See if there is going to be unbalanced between in and out.

A.M

I doubt it but it will make movement between jobs harder for individuals that don't have registration I think. That's why employers need to support current staff to meet the requirements.

Any more takers? The more responses to the poll the more representative of the situation the results are likely to be.

I can't believe that the NHS did not appoint technicians between 3-5years ago. Were employers a bit strapped for cash for a couple of years or is there a problem with the button?

Perhaps it's more to do with the readership of the forum pages?