The NHS must introduce a “newly qualified” status for healthcare professionals or they will move to the private sector, the SoR says.
Speaking at the SoR’s Annual Delegates’ Conference (ADC) on Tuesday, members will reinforce the need to invest in retention and development of newly qualified radiographers to strengthen the workforce and ensure the NHS can keep delivering high quality patient care.
Specifically, the SoR will emphasise the need for the NHS to introduce a newly qualified status, much like the early career teacher status, to grant members of Allied Health Professions the opportunity to receive formal mentoring and protected time for study and professional development.
The organisation will recommend that newly qualified members of the Allied Health Professions, including radiographers, should be granted a protected status, or the NHS may lose them to the private sector.
Radiographer retention
Dean Rogers, SoR executive director of industrial strategy and member relations, points out that entering the NHS as a newly qualified professional is notoriously difficult.
“You’re thrown at the deep end,” he said. “There’s an assumption that you’ll be young, single, probably broke and needing money. So they expect you to work excessive hours, whether or not those assumptions are true. You don’t get a world-class service by dropping people in at the deep end. People may not always drown, but they’re not going to become Olympic athletes, either.
“When people can’t access the right career support in the NHS, they go to the private sector, where they will get it. To ensure we retain radiographers in the NHS, we need to provide what’s recommended and recognised as best practice - and is implemented elsewhere in the public sector, for example in teaching.”
Early career teachers have a formal two-year induction period, during which they are provided with a package of training and support, including mentoring.
Contributing to burnout
Jason Elliott, a lecturer at Cardiff University conducting research into Diagnostic Radiographer shift work and burnout, found that 70 per cent of the 882 radiographers he surveyed were suffering from burnout.
A 2021 qualitative study by academics at Sheffield Hallam University found that challenging working patterns, inflexible working conditions and a lack of access to professional development all contributed to radiographer burnout.
“Demand for radiography is growing at a huge rate, so radiography is the best lens through which to see this problem,” said Mr Rogers. “But it applies to all allied health professions.”
At ADC the SoR will call on NHS trusts and workforce-planning bodies to offer a similar induction programme: “a structured transition programme, including employability workshops, guaranteed interview schemes, expanded rotational posts and enhanced preceptorships”.
Mr Rogers believes that this would go a long way towards reducing the attrition rate among newly qualified NHS professionals. “It’s critical to the NHS that we start taking this seriously,” he said. “That’s how we shift the culture and ensure that people stay.”