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

I work for the NHS and have done for the last 16 years. I suffered a complete burn out approx 3 years ago and work in a more local setting with more sociable hours now. I love my job and the satisfaction that I can make a difference. I’ve stayed because I genuinely can’t imagine doing something else and I’m 50 so don’t want to mess around with pension.

my brother is a plumber….his hourly rate to install a boiler is more than the neurosurgeon gets!

All nhs employees are eligible to join pension scheme… but I imagine many band 2 staff will take home much less than minimum wage after pension contributions, tax & NI.

My wife is currently in a hospital bed in London recovering from neurosurgery relating to a brain tumour.

I can not praise the nurses highly enough. They have been so kind, caring, patient and loving to my precious wife. Much more so than their professional standards dictate.

The government knows they will get great work from them without paying them properly so they don't.

The nurses have effectively shot themselves in the foot by being so good.

(Oh the neurosurgeon was pretty damn good too but I'm guessing he (quite rightly) gets paid a lot.)

I do work in the NHS and there is not a chance I will be able to carry on in my role until I'm 67. To get a decent pension I need to work in a role where I am paid well for three consecutive years from the age of 57 (though I'm fully expecting this to go up).
I'm 50. I think I've got maybe five more years then I'm done. So no gold plated pension for me, sadly.

I don't have children, I suspect if I did my request would have been granted. Another bone of contention for me.

No opportunities for extra hours in my profession/health board. There's no money in the budget. They're even cutting down on bank shifts because they can't afford it.

NHS worker who previously worked in private sector and I completely disagree with this statement.

I left a better paid job in retail which had paid breaks, a good pension, profit share and similar holiday/sick pay policy, is was more flexible too tbh (would like Thursday as a set day off NHS says no) I wanted a change and thought there would be scope for progression from band 2 but it's been painfully slow training wise.

i enjoy my role, am glad to be out of the corporate rat race but the idea that the NHS offers benefits that the private sector won't match just doesn't hold up.

This is crazy. These are the unforeseen consequences of all these initiatives that will supposedly make life better for lower paid workers.

Defined benefit and much better than someone who worked in a minimum wage job in private sector I suspect.

Employer contributions
Private sector 3%
NHS 23.7%

The 3% is minimum but this is what lots of small businesses contribute.

The fact is we pay 42% income tax above 43k, and 21% over 26k, which goes some way to justify the need for higher wages per band. I bet people don't take that into account when they're feeling this resentment.

Our band 2's, who literally keep our A&E running (health cares, porters, receptionists, waste etc) now cant even pay for their parking permits direct from their pay as it a salary sacrifice scheme that would being their take home pay under NMW which excludes them from the scheme. There's no other means of buying an onsite permit, which now means they have to spend more on daily parking tickets or park further away and walk in and out of site after their 12.5 hour shifts. A 2% rise would not bring their pay up high enough to allow for them to have a permit. These members of staff are absolutely vital to the running of the entire hospital.

Add this to the CoL crisis, we will lose this essential members of the work force. A "seemingly" good pension will not keep these staff members in the role now, as they can earn much more elsewhere. And they are absolutely vital, i cannot stress that enough.

Pensions again. I'd really know what pension someone would get if they started in a band 2 role, maybe even part time, if they worked from 45 to state pension age. It really wouldn't be that great I suspect. And that's if they could afford to pay the contributions an hadn't stopped paying because they couldn't afford to.

Band 2s are low paid but so are so many other jobs in private sector without the benefits, pensions, sick pay, holiday, security and availability of part-time hours than the NHS offers.

It's a wider problem than just NHS.

Another public sector worker here. I'll be watching with interest as our pay rise mirrors NHS/teachers.
Ironically these areas are understaffed and difficult to work in due to long shifts, dealing with public in difficult circumstances, lots of responsibility and stress, it's no wonder they struggle to recruit and retain when the pay doesn't match the work.
My pension is OK, but wait...... yes I have to work the above conditions on shit comparative pay for many years to get there yay!

I don't see NHS staff as any more or less deserving than anybody else doing any other job.

Inflation is forecast to settle down to 2% in the near future so it stands to reason that future pay awards will be in this region.

Many people work in physically and mentally demanding jobs for minimum wage or thereabouts. But without the pension, the sick leave, the higher holiday allowance and the ridiculous level of job security as it seems nigh on impossible to be sacked.

I didn't but I haven't looked that closely into it because I have no realistic prospect of actually moving to Scotland.

Rightly or wrongly the discrepancy is coming up all the time and breeding resentment and feeding undervalued.

Just because this is my pet peeve..

1. Out of hospital - you can’t buy larger pack sizes of paracetamol OTC and you are restricted in the number of packs you can buy so people with long term pain conditions will often get prescriptions to enable them to get larger pack sizes.
2. In hospital the cost to the hospital of a pack of paracetamol is considerably less than 30p so I doubt the giving a £1 would actually save money.
3. The cost of paracetamol to the NHS includes all formulations. I doubt it’s the tablets driving most of the cost (see point 2). It’s likely the IVs. Not prescribing these would likely lead to prescribing different more expensive drugs by IV.

Sorry I can only speak for my own and my colleagues experiences and have to admit I haven't tried dropping by a few hours but I have gone from 5 days p/w to 2 days p/w to support family needs, no problems. The hours worked on a given day remain the same as they are the needs of the service so I imagine there has to be some limitations but there are a lot of jobs where if you requested to go part time it would not be good for your career. In the NHS there are senior staff and managers who are part time/job share etc.

Forgot to add to my original post there are also LOTS of opportunities for extra hours if you need it. There aren't many clinical staff who just work their contracted hours and that's it. Often I'm the lead up to Xmas I will pick up extra hours to pay for Xmas presents etc.

I work in the NHS - with my qualification and skill set (and recruitment shortages out the wazoo for SALTs) I could easily move across into private sector work within a different area of SLT. I don't want to - because my particular client group aren't likely to be able to access private therapy and I love the client group I work with; plus I'm in an incredible team, led by a head of service who takes absolutely no shite and believes in trying to keep good staff and offer them progression within the service - but we're fighting the battle against posts being down-banded constantly along with really tough recruitment situations - and the complexity of clients I was dealing with as a fresh B5 would have scared a lot of people away.

If it wasn't for how good my management and colleagues are - I would have possibly jumped across into private work once my NQP status was signed off - but as it is I'm happy enough with where I work. Plus our admin staff are absolutely fab.

Many of my colleagues on lower bands aren’t even in the pension as they can’t afford to be!!

I have friends on band 8a-d who have had to,leave the pension scheme too as they couldn't afford to lose over £400 a month in contributions. Most of them joined the NHS in the last few years, or have been in and out for years, so are coming in after the schemes were changed.

It's only worthwhile having an NHS pension now if you go in when you are young, never leave and get to the higher bands quickly.

Did you read my post about the minimal difference in take home pay with these gross figures between Scotland and England? You would be nowhere near 8k better off.

I've just had my request to drop 3 hours a week refused. It's not flexible for all.

We were discussing this on Friday at work. The govt is determined to punish the NHS and has already raided any underspend left (its only underspend because the fuckers make it so difficult for us to recruit or do any of the service improvement work we need to desperately do).
They also like the narrative of withholding money from non clinical staff supposedly for clinical staff...except what actually happens is that the non clinical staff are the backbone of the NHS and make our jobs a lot easier. Same with the narrative about managers all being useless...they aren't, they are just restricted in what they are able to do like the rest of us due to this govt treating the NHS and all its staff like shit for 13 years.
Sorry for the rant, just had a bad day on Friday when our divisional manager almost quit her job due to the abuse that she keeps getting from patients and lower band staff.