AIBU to think a potential 2% pay rise for the NHS staff is ridiculous?

I stand corrected is noy a year but they do get 4 weeks paid leave total per kid ,to be taken before kid is 18 and a lot more unpaid

I don't know anyone that has got enhanced maternity pay in the private sector, maybe a lot of these organisations have just started to offer enhanced pay? Same than now there are childcare provisions for 2 years old. When I had my kids my daughter could t start til the term after she turned 3 and she only had 15 hours, glad to see there have been improvements though... I do think there is a difference between what the article says and what you said, it says 74% of organisations now offer enhanced maternity pay not that 74% of women get that. I am in my 40's so I had my maternity leave 10 years ago, and it was just 6 weeks at 90% then statutory. As I said, I don't know many women that had enhanced maternity pay apart from nurses.

Exactly, they don't think it's good but it's a heck of a lot better than in the private sector. My pension actually has gone down in the last couple of years instead of up. I would rather keep my 4% contribution and have my company's contribution (a pitiful 5%) straight into a high interest rate account, than in a useless pension. We also have zero guarantee that we will be retiring at the current age, so not sure how much better NHS staff think it can get...

I am one of those who switched from private to public sector after examining the benefits. Funnily enough one of my perks in public sector is cheap gym membership!

I transferred my existing pension into defined benefits one and 9 years of my previous works pension where I’d upped my personal contribution from 3% to 10% was equivalent to 1 year of my db one which was slightly gutting!

I am glad I moved and I feel personally that I’m paid about right for my levdl but I am surrounded by people who think private sector earn mega bucks and public sector earn pittance and that public work twice as hard so deserve more. Half of the people that voice this opinion I think would last 3/4 months in companies I’ve worked in previously before getting let go. There’s a tonne of support here for people who aren’t preforming compared to private sector where you’d just be let go and private sector can be really brutal about sickness whereas there are people on our team who are sick at least every other month with no consequences. I have never worked anywhere before where I automatically got a payrise after a year. I’ve always had to move or threaten to move or gain a qualification to get more money so it was quite eye opening to hear people talk about what they “deserve”.

i also think comparing public to private is pointless because there is going to be such a wide range of private sector roles. Some will be great employers with loads of benefits and flexibility and others will be awful. And then there is all the nuances or clinical roles and training which means there is unlikely to be a like for like role.

I don’t think nhs recruitment difficulties is all down to salary though (for admin at least) some practises like asking for references before people have handed their notices in, taking 6 months to go from application to in post, wanting the moon on a stick for some basic roles and then they wonder why anyone half decent has found something else in the meantime.

I don’t really know what the answer to all this is. It’s not a race to the bottom and I think comparison of private vs public is pointless on both sides.

This, there like a cult like group when you mention the NHS pension.

I want more money NOW, not just when I retire in my early 70s (likely)

I worked as a band 2 HCA years ago when the pay was considerably more than minimum wage.

My role included:

Sole charge of upto 5 patients with MH issues for upto 12 hours overnight (supported by a nurse (band 5) I could call by phone who was on the other side of a locked door). In the day I would have a 2nd HCA.

Supporting patients with significant distress, hallucinations, and delusions.

Documenting presentation/ risk. Monitoring for any signs of changes to physical or mental health.

Taking patients on escorted community leave, including previously convicted murderers and sex offenders.

Responding to alarms and physically restraining patients. Including men significantly larger and stronger than me.

Responding to alarms where people had attempted suicide or were significantly self harming. Deescalating these situations. Sitting with and calming patients. Cleaning up blood / sharps after incidents.

Searching patients / rooms and belongings for dangerous objects / drugs.

I was injured and assaulted a number of times and verbally abused regularly.

There wasn't really a route for progression. We had a couple of people who had a band 3 role but they'd been there forever and unless they left there was no opportunity no matter how many courses you attended or skills you gained.

There is no way I would do that job for what band 2 is paid now.

Although, I'm not sure if the answer needs to be a combination of increased pay in general + some rebanding of roles to acknowledge the amount of work they actually do and the level of responsibility.

The performance related pay rises also leads to a very competitive environment and a lot of office politics and people wanting the same opportunities and roles, so it’s not always a nice environment to work in.

Yes, lots of public sector workers think private sector will be much better and some jobs are of course, but many aren’t. Lots aren’t much higher in pay than public sector roles and there’s not the security, good pension or sick pay that public sector gets. The pay rises can be higher, but they also rely on the company doing well and often are performance related so some year you can get a lot, some years nothing, some years 1-2%. There’s usually no increments/spine pay points either.

I think actually no payrise would be less insulting than 0.13%. It's like £50 for the entire year, and totally pointless.

Private sector pay rises are worse than this most of the time so good luck with that idea (and pension won't be as good)

But nobody is arguing that private sector pensions are a perk, so saying the private sector isn't any better/is worse doesn't make any points at all. If people are going to argue the NHS pension is a huge perk they need to understand that while that used to be the case, it isn't now and there are real negatives to having your workplace pension linked to the state pension.

My personal view is that the Tories want to leave Labour a mess.

It’s pretty widely acknowledged that they’re salting the earth to leave Labour the biggest fuck up possible to sort out.

Good one! I see lots of people complaining how good we have it in the public sector, but yet we are in a recruitment crisis in many places. I guess some people will only be happy when we have shit pensions to match our shit wages.

My personal view is that the Tories want to leave Labour a mess. They know that this tactic of very far below inflation pay rises caused a huge amount of industrial disputes last year and are wanting to hand over as many unresolved pay disputes as possible to an incoming Labour government so their first act has to be to increase spending to resolve them.

@HeresMyBreakdown if you are private sector why don't you just transfer your skills and come and join us at the wonderful NHS? What's stopping you miss a great opportunity?

How do you think it works in the private sector? Only generally we have no guarantees as to what we will end up with come retirement?? Plus public sector get very generous pension contribution matching (is it 22% in NHS? and as someone has said upthread the forces is non contributory) but in private sector many companies do the minimum 5%?? matching with no guarantees what you will get on retirement, so actually if you want a decent retirement a) you have to be aware and proactive to this when young (and in private sector this is not spelt out to you at all) b) you have to put in a lot more of your 'headline' salary to compensate which reduces your salary further every month (but with none of the DB guarantees)

The *perks" of the NHS keep being highlighted as an amazing thing and as others have said above these aren't just the NHS and actually aren't always as good as they sound. I was looking at a job in the private sector and the benefits there were a lot more attractive (to be fair I was sold at the mention of free car parking and gym membership 🤣)

@Moreorlessmentallystable the pension brigade make me laugh too. People in NHS pay a decent amount and it's deducted off their wage as a result. I'm early 30s who knows if retirement will be raised to 70 by then not only that is there any guarantee of even living that long? It's hardly anything to rave about.

Enhanced maternity pay isn't 'exceptional' and you do get it in many other jobs - 74.1% of UK women get this.

Source:
https://pregnantthenscrewed.com/enhanced-maternity-pay/

You absolutely do NOT get 4 weeks of paid parental leave each year!!!
NHS have the same right as any other British employee to request up to four weeks unpaid parental leave if they have a child under 16. The manager has the same rights as all other employer to turn it down.

The pension nowadays is not "great" it's a pension, yes, but it sopped being great quite some time ago.

They definitely deserve a pay raise. Most places who employ alot of people on NMW have had to freeze pay for those just above in order to afford the increase in NMW so it's good that the NHS have been able to give an increase to everyone.

Where do you get the 4 weeks paid parental leave? Which NHS trust offers that?!

My trust offers 1 week of 'special leave' a year, which can be used to cover attending funerals, taking a single day to arrange care for a sick child/relative, attending child's gp appointments, etc. The other local health trust does not offer this and staff have to make up any missed time, or be unpaid for it.

The civil service and armed forces have similar conditions. The armed forces pension is non contributory.

The NHS staff get incredible perks though that wyou won't get in ANY other job: great pensions, enhanced maternity leave, 4 weeks of paid parental leave per kid a year (not sure if this has a cap on amount of kids you have).... So it's not just about the wages...

I think everyone is sympathetic to people whose salaries have not kept pace with inflation. It's definitely much harder to lay the bills and keep your head above water, but public finances are extremely challenging - I wouldn't want to be wrestling with them.

Each 1 percent uplift on the NHS salary bill costs the taxpayer £570m. The country has 93 percent of GDP in national debt due to Covid largely and there's no promise of any increase in productivity for that expenditure. So if we want to give very generous pay rises in the public sector we will have to pay more income tax to fund pay increases. I think around 2/3rds of the population are in favour of tax increases so willing to see that taken out of their pay packets (I presume that includes public sector workers like NHS employees). But at the moment neither the Government or Labour Party are prepared to raise taxes. Labour have promised to match Govt spending rules for at least 2years.

I've been in the NHS for almost 10 years. I love my job, i love being able to support and care for women and their families, to give them the care they should get. I especially love caring for those who face challenges getting the care they are entitled to. I'm great at my job, not blowing my own trumpet but I am.

However I don't think I will stay on the NHS much longer. The NHS runs on the good will of the people who work for it who work above their contacted hours and go without breaks. I have gone into work on my days off at the request of the ladies I care for. We don't get paid for extra hours but instead write it in a folder where we are meant to take it back as TOIL but we never get the opportunity to. I'm fed up of the politics and of the lack of recognition from those above. It doesn't matter how hard you working the NHS you are not rewarded for it. I get the same pay as those that give very little and are shit at their job.