Nurses Strike

[TartanGirl1]

Do you agree with the nurses strike?

@Nottodaysausage we need more nurses like your excellent DH. But we are leaving in droves. I know striking will affect my patients. But I also know that if we want to recruit and retain the best staff, they won’t be attracted by the current state of the NHS. Both in pay and conditions. I wouldn’t recommend this job to my DDs even though I’ve done it for 20 years. If you go to uni and accumulate thousands of pounds in debt, there are much less stressful graduate jobs out there. Ones that don’t involve running a ward with unsafe staffing levels for 12 hour shifts without food or toilet breaks, all the while worrying about a patient dying on your watch and be dragged to court to explain why you didn’t do x,y or z.

Yes, I support them. The NHS is chronically understaffed and it's been quite apparent for years that it's been deliberately run into the ground. I'm NHS but not clinical. I'm in a union and will be voting to strike.

The ignorance on this thread is making me really angry. I have included the payscales below.
The majority of qualified nurse will be a band 5 their whole career, this requires a degree
One nurse in 30 will be a band 6 , this requires a degree plus postgraduate diploma
One nurse in 30 will be a band 7 this requires a masters degree
One nurse in 250 plus may be band 8, this requires masters plus many years experience
One nurse in 3/4000 will be a band 9, top of the tree. Maybe 3 per health board.

I have been nursing for 36 years and always said I would never strike. I will now.

I work in excess of 50 hrs a week for 34K, no overtime pay and a load of shit on my shoulders.

Well said. I’m sure some people think nurses just make their way up the bands with each year of experience.

@blinkingheckthisishard I did say £28-29k on average. I'm well aware than many nurses take home no where near that, I come from a long line of nursing and NHS staff, as well as working in a clinical NHS setting for 10 years. I'm also a band 7 sonographer and I take home just over £31k a year as well. Which obviously includes weekend enhancements and out of hours payments.

I'm so sorry about your dad

I hope one of the nurses on this thread will answer your question

The original media said cancer treatments would be affected and honestly I think that's inexcusable

No one is saying nurses should just put up with it but striking is not the only answer

It's a yes from me. I've been a nurse for 40 years, it's never been so bad. If a nurse is a graduate pay them like other graduates. It's the only way to retain staff.

I am in support of strike action.
I think everyone needs to be made aware of what short staffing actually means in reality.
Caring for a patient, taking obs, making up IVs, administering meds, chasing docs, taking bloods, siting cannulas etc etc takes time. Staff simply cannot get everything done safely when the staff/patient ratios are so high.

I'm a nurse.

Have worked on wards and been a band 6 but went to the community and currently in a band 5 post.

I take home around 1890 a month after student loan, tax and pension. Maybe a bit more if I've had a good month on the mileage. I very rarely stick to my 37.5 contracted hours per week. Usually meant to finish at 5 but frequently still there documenting at 6. I don't mind though, I personally feel that in the community the job is still far nicer than when I worked on the wards. Chronically understaffed, and even on a full quota of staff the workload was unbearable. The responsibility on your shoulders looking after 12-14 acutely sick patients for 12.5 hours was absolutely draining. I used to go home after night shifts and not be able to sleep in fear I'd missed something.

I'm lucky that DH has a decent job and can shoulder increases in prices for us with the cost of living crisis, I don't know how lower earners with families to support are doing it. Hard times indeed. I certainly don't have spare cash for Mercedes and posh holidays like the earlier poster who claims all the nurses they know do. In fact, I'm praying my little car keeps going because I can't afford a new one and I desperately need it for work.

I used to think the pay was fair when I first qualified. I knew it was not a job where I was going to be rich, even if I did exceptionally well at it. I really don't want to martyr myself, I chose this but for me it's the fact that the wages have barely increased but all the outgoings have. Food, petrol, gas and electric. We deserve to be paid fairly enough so these things aren't a worry. The responsibility demands more that what we are currently receiving.

But I can't lie, strike action isn't sitting well with me. I've already got patients worrying if we'll be coming or not and that is going against everything we usually stand for. Conflicted but see no other option in the circumstances.

No I do not. I am really fed up of the rhetoric around nurses to be honest. I have received appalling and callous care from nurses in the NHS and yet they hold themselves out as paragons of virtue beyond reproach in public because they are doing their job. The patients cannot affect their pay or conditions and will suffer, however during the pandemic, patients and members of the public showed support with donations, discounts, etc. They are aiming their action at the wrong people. I have family members who work for the NHS, the pay is not the highest, but mat leave, sick pay, pension etc. are all well above the average.

@PipinwasAuntieMabelsdog

Paragons of virtue? Could you please link to the evidence that supports your assertion?

And do you seriously equate pot-banging with a decent pay rise? Why are there 10s of thousand of vacancies in nursing? Maybe that pension isn't as golden as you think? Or the other benefits?

Seriously, 🤔

@Fordian Not talking about the pot banging... I am talking about the small local businesses and community groups who donated money and gave discounts. I know what the benefits package is, you can't deny that it is generous in comparison to other jobs. All the NHS 'hero' rhetoric is demonstrative of the public image and this is far from the reality for lots of patients. I have an invisible disability and communication difficulties and have been treated appallingly by NHS nurses on several occasions. That is my experience and informs my view, I do not support the strike, but my approval is not required so it doesn't really matter.

Also why are they more deserving of 17% than fire fighters, paramedics, military, teachers etc.?

Retired Nurse and Midwife here,I support the strike 100%.

Yes. But not for the money. For working conditions staff levels and patient safety

But some more money would
Be ok too. Just think17% is unrealistic.

I support nurses 100%

Don't you see nurses are in a desperate situation? Why has it come to this? Why is it upto the nurses to be the good samiritan and risk their pin?

A thousand times yes. Excellent nurses are leaving in droves. The ones left behind are working so hard to hold everything up and keep things safe. It’s hard, hard work and the wages in no way reflect the intellectual, physical and emotional labour.

’No beds’ doesn’t mean no physical beds, it means no nurses to look after a patient in it. The ratios even in the most well resourced areas are unsafe. I have no idea how those in ED are still turning up.

No but mostly because I'm giving birth and scared of how the strike will impact the care I get at such a scary and vulnerable time.

No

Their patients are also in a desperate situation. Many of them more desperate, they might die.

Again, no one is saying nurses should just put up with it, but it's the 21st century, there are lots of different ways to pressure the government without risking lives

Get a grip. Nurses should be able to strike just like anyone else and not be held over a barrel with claims of patient safety. I agree it's long overdue.

So a selfish reason rather than one based on improving the lives of others?