NHS admin staff keep services running - but we"re being hit by cuts

Secretaries, waiting list and medical records clerks, clinical audit facilitators, business analysts and IT technicians and other support staff pull together to keep essential lifesaving NHS services running smoothly. To a staff nurse, the help of a ward clerk to retrieve a patient’s medical history can be just as crucial as that of a senior consultant. Data quality officers ensuring patients are properly admitted and discharged on computer systems can have an immeasurable impact on the management of bed capacity.

Yet those of us in NHS support services work in less-than-ideal circumstances. I work in an office that is a converted ward. Save for wheeling out most of the medical equipment, it remains an abandoned clinical area. I’m always wary when manoeuvring around our cramped kitchenette – imagine the embarrassment of accidentally leaning on one of the emergency call buttons and having the rapid response CPR team come crashing in.

Plates and cutlery stand stacked precariously atop the tiny dining table and fridge (kindly donated by another admin department, who were throwing it out). A locked walk-in cupboard adjacent to the kitchen would be ideal for storing these. However, due to budget and staff restrictions, logging a job with estates to get a new Yale lock installed has proven fruitless on several occasions. Jobs deemed non-essential are often cancelled. With a leaking radiator pipe, broken window and an unexplained beep from above the ceiling tiles failing to see a quick response, reporting anything else can make one feel rather hypercritical.

The already cramped office still holds a partly dismantled bed hoist, condemned imaging machines and a box of surgical tubing, seemingly forgotten. We have jokingly discussed eBaying the lot to raise funds to buy desk lamps; dim strip lighting doesn’t quite work in an office.

I was lucky enough to suffer a full-scale-beyond-repair PC meltdown one day, so IT had no choice but to provide me with a reconditioned model from their storeroom. However, some of my colleagues are working on machines so old they take upwards of 20 minutes to boot up in the morning. The high-pitched whine of the struggling fans is maddening. Stretched IT staff struggle to keep up with demand. While problems with direct patient impact understandably take priority, waiting three days for a simple but essential fix is excessive.

For a team dependent on computers for their jobs, this can mean time wasted recording information on paper, only to have to transfer it to a digital source once systems are back up and running. It’s easy to see how this can contribute to huge backlogs and missed deadlines. Panicked managers pleading staff to take budget-stretching overtime is often the result.

Cheap or outdated equipment with a tendency to crash or throw up errors only adds to the problem. False economy reigns supreme, when an inadequate version is eventually replaced with the one we should have had all along. An ancient printer once cost my department half a day of productivity, as IT spent hours searching for a withdrawn ink cartridge so we could run off essential documents.

A friend in another department is responsible for requesting essential office supplies. To ensure he’s not buying luxury items the trust can’t afford, all orders are approved by executive-level staff. A recent attempt to gain a few pencil sharpeners saw 12 members of staff told to share three. Mouse mats are definitely off limits.

Understaffing is not just a problem on the frontline. Although there have been cuts and restrictions to what is made available, access to support and training for admin staff is still admittedly good, and it’s not uncommon to hear of a new recruit using NHS resources to gain experience and qualifications before handing in their notice to take a similar role in the private sector. Vacancies are often not re-advertised. While the wary jump ship, those left behind are expected to absorb the roles of colleagues, often without a wage increase.

I am proud to say I work for the NHS. It means much more to me than private sector benefits like a shiny new Apple Mac to work on or an all-expenses paid Christmas do. I enjoy knowing that I am, albeit in an indirect way, contributing to saving people’s lives. There is a sense of community in the health service I don’t sense in corporate organisations; we still join unions, strike together, are aware of each other’s problems.

Yet, just like the healthcare professionals feeling the stress and strain of the continued NHS cuts, we support staff feel we can do only do our best when we’re comfortable at work and morale is high. Since beginning my NHS career, although I’ve advanced and been promoted, I also feel that things are sliding backwards. While frontline medical staff are still undoubtedly in the most direct line of fire, we feel the impact under the surface too and there’s a definite feeling that things are getting worse.

• Some details have been altered to protect the identity of the writer

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NHS admin staff keep services running - but we"re being hit by cuts