'Nurses are well paid for the job'

[Letsallscreamatthesistene]

An MP said this today, in responce to the debate surrounding the 1% pay rise. Im a nurse, and I know what I think (that the pay is ok, not terrible but not fantastic), im really interested to know what others think?

1 percent is not much but it is more than teachers, civil servants or police will get.

You’re aware that teachers and police got 2.5% last summer and they said NHS would follow in the new year?
HMRC have just got 12.5%.
MPs enormous rise too.
That’s before you get to test and trace, I’m not really sure if people comprehend just how much money they have been given.

@BungleandGeorge

1 percent is not much but it is more than teachers, civil servants or police will get.

You’re aware that teachers and police got 2.5% last summer and they said NHS would follow in the new year?
HMRC have just got 12.5%.
MPs enormous rise too.
That’s before you get to test and trace, I’m not really sure if people comprehend just how much money they have been given.

Teachers got 2.5% at the expense of school budgets. It was a nasty trick pulled by the nasty government - give pay rises but it has to be funded from the same budgets. No extra money given.

This government is nasty.

It doesn’t really matter what the general public think.

If the nursing unions decided to go on strike demanding starting salaries of £100k the government would be forced to concede as the nurses provide a large safety critically essential service. The government need to be mindful not to push too far.

If they stay on band 5 then after 6 years the basic full time pay is £30,615. If they go up one band via specialising or leading the ward then the range is £31,365 when they start to £37,890 after 7 years.

Also any night or weekend work is paid at an enhanced rate and generally needs to be done so the actual take home pay will be higher.

Pay scale can be seen here: www.nhsemployers.org/pay-pensions-and-reward/nhs-terms-and-conditions-of-service---agenda-for-change/pay-scales/annual

I can’t really comment on whether it’s enough but it is more than is being reported.

@Grenlei

I think the pay is reasonable, we have paralegals working for us who have law degrees on 16-17k a year.

As has been said, you get the advantage of public sector pensions (my employer contributes 3% and we've had no pay rise for the last 2 years...) plus opportunities for overtime, bank work etc.

@Grenlei, why is your employer paying employees less than the minimum wage? On a £16,000 salary, your take home pay will be £14,520 after tax and National Insurance. This equates to £1,210 per month and £279.23 per week. If you work 5 days per week, this is £55.85 per day, or £6.98 per hour at 40 hours per week.

NMW isn't calculated on net pay.

£16000 is £7.69, assuming a 40 hour week. The National Living Wage is £8.20, assuming these paralegals are over 22 (which they probably are, if they have a law degree).

They would need to be earning over £17000 to be paid the Living Wage, unless the firm is pretending they are apprentices, or they all only work 20 hour weeks.

And no, I don’t think just about paying the minimum living wage to paralegals is anything to boast about.

Recruiting was frozen in 2020 due to Covid, so the salary figures I stated are from 18 months or so ago, and would have been in excess of the then minimum wage which of course is calculated on gross rather than net pay, and based on a 35 hour week.

I clearly wasn't boasting about that pay rate I referenced it to demonstrate that graduate salaries in professions outside nursing are not all 30k+ from the outset, and that by comparison to paralegals and other grad roles, the starting salary for nurses isn't THAT bad. Especially when you add in the various other benefits of working for the NHS.

Band 8 £50k+ : currently seconded to ITU for the duration of the current emergency.

@Grenlei

Recruiting was frozen in 2020 due to Covid, so the salary figures I stated are from 18 months or so ago, and would have been in excess of the then minimum wage which of course is calculated on gross rather than net pay, and based on a 35 hour week.

I clearly wasn't boasting about that pay rate I referenced it to demonstrate that graduate salaries in professions outside nursing are not all 30k+ from the outset, and that by comparison to paralegals and other grad roles, the starting salary for nurses isn't THAT bad. Especially when you add in the various other benefits of working for the NHS.

But a paralegal is not a profession. They do not need a degree, they work under a professional, qualified lawyer. They are not equivalent to nursing which is a profession in the true sense, where members are autonomous, take full legal responsibility, have to have a vocational degree and register with a professional body and fulfill the requirements of the professional body (e.g. mandatory CPD).

It’s sad that some law graduates are not able to find training positions to become solicitors and barristers and have to take work beneath their educational standard. There aren’t enough nursing students so they can obtain work as nurses, rather than as something else. You need to compare like with like- a registered profession with a mandatory degree. Comparing anyone with a degree whether their job requires this or not is simply not equivalent!

[quote BuggerBognor]@Grenlei is correct. The law society minimum salary for trainee solicitors (stellar academics + law degree + post graduate qualification + massive competition) is £19,500 iirc. Plenty of bright young lawyers (the ones on the high street, mainly) are only paid law soc minimum, but we only hear about the 6 figure starting salaries at US firms. Earned by a tiny percentage, who are worked round the clock for the privilege.

The pension is not as good as it used to be but jaw droppingly good. DH gets an employer contribution of 20%. (I’ve never had a private sector contribute more than 10% and even then, only when employee matched it). He will retire at 65 on 50% of his salary (currently about £120k) for life. Those bitching about the NHS pension clearly have no idea how much you would need to save to purchase an annuity worth that much. Please ask an actuary - you’ve got a seriously good deal.[/quote]
Perhaps look at the current pension deal That one is only a legacy for those nearing retirement. New one is not final salary, not retirement at 65 and the employee contributions are up and employer down

I dont think its enough but then I dont think anyone is paid enough.

Straight out of uni I earnt 17k outside of london for a professional white collar job which required 7 years at University (BA+MA)

I bought a house with a partner also on 17k, car etc

I ended up leaving because the pay was paltry and became a gardener.

So fundamentally - not enough
Comparatively - enough

But a paralegal is not a profession. They do not need a degree, they work under a professional, qualified lawyer.

On this point I have a number of friends working as paras currently. It is very competitive to get a job and you do need a degree/masters to get one (maybe not on paper but in reality). They are working as paras while they do their professional exams. Their is no such thing as coming straight out of uni into being an accredited lawyer

Most firms only recruit grads as paralegals.

The work they do is a LOT more challenging and demanding than the level of work I undertook as a trainee solicitor many years ago; it's typical for those firms who work in high volume areas to have quite junior paralegals running their own caseloads with only minimal supervision.

Yes of course it's not the same as being a nurse; nursing is more demanding, but that's reflected in the fact a nurse starts on a salary almost 50% higher than a new graduate paralegal might expect.

As to pensions, in many years of working in law, I have never had an employer contribute more than the minimum. Indeed, many didn't even provide pensions until they were required by law to do so. I am 10-15 years from planned retirement and my pension pot is running at about 30k I think, so almost worthless.

@LemonSwan

But a paralegal is not a profession. They do not need a degree, they work under a professional, qualified lawyer.

On this point I have a number of friends working as paras currently. It is very competitive to get a job and you do need a degree/masters to get one (maybe not on paper but in reality). They are working as paras while they do their professional exams. Their is no such thing as coming straight out of uni into being an accredited lawyer

Sounds like graduates exceed requirements in law but that doesn’t alter the fact that they are not equivalent to nurses or other healthcare professionals in status or responsibilities. My training salary post graduation was less than 10k, but I was training, I wasn’t working autonomously or taking the same responsibility. It went up when I had the professional reg, that is pretty much the same for most professions although nurses do all training within the course so are registered straight away. Almost everyone in the NHS is on the same salary scales. Whether that be admin jobs which are very popular or nurses which have a shortage or other clinical professions which have very long training. It used to be separate which was much better tbh as some parts of the NHS are underpaid and difficult to recruit to

@Onandoff

It doesn’t really matter what the general public think.

If the nursing unions decided to go on strike demanding starting salaries of £100k the government would be forced to concede as the nurses provide a large safety critically essential service. The government need to be mindful not to push too far.

I disagree. Public opinion matters to elected representatives.

Gwenhwyfar of course it doesn’t matter. For example most of the London public get fed up with tube workers constantly striking. They provide a necessary service and so consequently they tend to get what they want.

If nurses did the same it would be much more serious as without their labour people would die. The government would have no alternative but to give them what they wanted as there are not others able to do their jobs. The government are at risk of pushing them to take this kind of action. It will end badly for...the government.

@BuggerBognor

I think the word “profession” is very overused and pretty meaningless these days - especially in this context, since nursing wasn’t even a degree-level job until recently.

Paralegals do most of the work that used to be done by lawyers (in much the same way that nurses have taken over doctors’ responsibilities). But by your argument, I don’t think you can argue that a solicitor is anything other than a “professional” and their own professional body thinks that they should be paid £19k. Most of them will work 12+ hour days for that. No overtime, no increments - just a slim chance of a solicitors’ job at the end that will almost certainly still pay less than your band 5. Most lawyers earn between 40k and 50k. The high rolling city ones that get trotted out whenever doctors want a pay rise are rarer than rocking horse shit, in the grand scheme.

I don’t want to get bogged down comparing with law, just because it’s what I know, but the wider point is that many in the private sector earn considerably less than you think (and will be taxed even more heavily to pay for any largesse).

DH is still quite a way from retirement! But as I said, the decline in NHS pensions is disappointing for those expecting the old style money tree one, but if you speak to an actuary, you will still find it is absolutely astonishingly good and still significantly better than anything in the private sector. Frankly it’s worth a lot more than it’s given credit for when the pay-kvetching starts.

The difference is there are no shortage of people willing to be lawyers and will take poorly paid routes to get there. The issue of supply and demand is much worse in nursing. Nurses need to realise this and assert their bargaining power.

I think the pay is reasonable. That doesn’t mean I’d want to do the job, it’s way beyond my capabilities, but a lot of what makes it hard isn’t about the money but the conditions. There’s possibly an argument for specific market supplements if it can be demonstrated that it’s the salary that’s deterring people from becoming nurses or making them leave, but I’m not sure it is.

Perhaps look at the current pension deal That one is only a legacy for those nearing retirement. New one is not final salary, not retirement at 65 and the employee contributions are up and employer down

It’s still a DB scheme. It’s still worlds better than the kind of DC schemes most people can access. CARE tends to work out better for many except for high flyers anyway. I work in local government and have always seen it as part of the bargain, we get paid less but our pensions are significantly better. (Incidentally, NHS ts and cs for just about everything are better than local government but that’s an aside.)

I'm an NHS Nurse. I'm with the others, the pay is OK but not fantastic.

What I'd like is a pay rise in line with inflation. Anything less is effectively a paycut. I'm not being outrageous in wanting that.