Nurses Strike

[TartanGirl1]

Do you agree with the nurses strike?

yes it needs to be both pay rise and addressing working conditions, and pay rise will in the long run lead to better conditions anyways as more people are recruited in. But it all needs to be appropriate to the situation at the moment, it’s likely needing a long term fix rather than a complete fix right now. I don’t agree with 17% pay rise asked for, 10% would be more realistic.

Thank you overthebow and orangebadger for your contributions. I think we are all in agreement the NHS needs a complete overhaul.

@Overthebow yes we certainly won't get 17% and the RCN know that. Start higher than you will accept is the mantra of all salary negotiations, so possibly 12%.

Yes!
im a midwife and my ballot paper is en route to me from RCM, it will be a yes from me too. Unison went out already, this is just the start

I think the whole nursing staff pay structure needs a complete overhaul. I have always found it odd how they are on the same pay scale as support staff, the jobs can not be compared. Fully in support of nursing staff striking as I think they are working in horrendous conditions currently and recruitment is going to become impossible if nothing changes.

Doctors start on £14 an hour too so I don't think a doctor's pay would help either. One doctor on the night shift for all the medical wards. An absolute joke.

I think its a difficult one. its top heavy on management. we need our old cottage hospitals back for those recovering or awaiting care home provision.. processes need to change, we need far less paper work and to step away from a culture where we need to prove we have done a job by writing we have done it rather than just believing that we didn't leave Agnes unfed in her bed. Today I had to document 3 different places that I had carried out one task.

Families need to be much more realistic in their expectations. we cant magically make Gary walk and eat all of his food. if he hasn't done so for a few years. Shouting at us isn't going to work either. Nor was the punch to the face I got a few months ago. I really don't mind when patients have dementia or delirium attack me, because they are unwell.

If we paid staff better, made the environment feel nicer and had better staffing then we would probably feel better about going to work.

As it is I have to work with a huge variety of deteriorating health conditions and know how to implement care.. dementia, stroke, delirium, haemorrhages, end of life, seizures. I need to know how to keep someone safe, give medications that wont interact.

We don't just make beds and write notes.

I cant do my job without having been to uni, 2300 hours i had to work for free, I'm expected to carry out continuous professional development which i then need to do in my own time. I need to revalidate every 3 years, pay a fee yearly and have a union fee to cover me legally if I step the wrong way.

I'm tired as are a lot of us. still plodding on. I really want paid breaks, so if i don't get a chance to use them I don't feel as salty

I don’t agree with strike action at all. Patient care surely as a nurse should be the most important factor. Nursing is a vocation, no one becomes a nurse because it’s highly paid. I agree that nurses are underpaid for their skills, but 17% Seems a lot given the state of the NHS coupled with the economy.

@Roselilly36 currently every ward I know of is running on unsafe staffing levels and patients are being harmed as a result. We have patients on hospital trolleys on corridors for over a day. 27,000 nurses left the professional last year. And that breeds a situation where the staff that are constantly working in those conditions, themselves get fed up and leave. We need to get staffing numbers up. Nursing is an all graduate profession. If you come out of university with tens of thousands of debt, you need to get paid a graduate wage from day 1, or why would anyone want to do it?? The NHS spent £3 billion pounds on agency staff last year as we don’t have enough permanent staff. We need to make the wages and conditions attractive, to help patients get better care. Everyone that is striking, including myself, is doing it for patients, their well-being and safety.

@Spudina I can understand the frustration. The NHS wastes enormous amounts of money, poorly sourced PPE during Covid, far too many overpaid managers, the amount of letters sent via post is a ridiculous waste of money when the vast majority of patients have access to e-mail. The NHS is a very inefficient organisation. Government not supporting nurses pay increases and voting against them etc. They promoted the doorstep clapping though. There are a few nurses in my family, so I do get it. The mandate caused a lot of nurses to leave. But nurses striking is not going to make things safer for patients in the short term. Who knows what the answer is.

I disagree.
Nurses have passively accepted poor pay, conditions and a deteriorating service for patients- until now. Enough is enough. 12% vacancies/ 47,000 in total. It is worsening as a big tranche of experienced nurses just hanging on because of pensions are retiring in the next few years. Nurses know they can no longer provide safety critical care. They have pleased with the government for 12 years and nothing has changed.
Trusts are spaffing £3 billion a year on agency staff and probably the same on Bank overtime shifts. They spend £17,000 on recruiting one nurse from overseas.
Nurses need to be removed from the Agenda for Change pay scale that pays support staff more than them and onto their own pay structure. If we make nursing more attractive more staff will mean less spend on agency. It will actually be cheaper than continuing down the status quo. Even in
If conditions remain less than optimal people will do a shitty job if adequately remunerated.

That's not the nurses responsibility though is it. Why should nurses have to work under poor staffing?

The NHS wasn't solely sourcing PPE for example. The criteria were laid out for procurement. The government decided to deal with sourcing (and we all saw how that shit show worked out). The huge 'inefficiencies' are evident when you see how much private companies are creaming off under an 'NHS' umbrella. Cherry pick easy surgical cases as you get paid per case,leaving more complex cases for the NHS hospitals to deal with (with overall less funding as a result as money generated from easier cases helped to offset costs associated with the more complex). Swathes of services were privatised (sexual health services for example and anything beyond the money generating testing bit then pushed back to other NHS services so that they could make a profit.

This government (and the previous Tory ones) have systematically gaslit so many people into thinking the NHS is inefficient. And idiots keep falling for it and voting those who are ripping it to shreds and lining their, and their mates' pockets.

The nurses absolutely should go on strike. Strike day staffing is probably safer than what is currently going on. I'll definitely be showing them my support on the picket line (I'm not a nurse). If they say they can't fund it, I'd be quite happy for Tory party members to be presented with the bill to the tune of £30 billion. After all they were the ones who picked Liz Truss et all (not the rest of the populace) who caused £30 billion of the £60 billion of the current deficit. Take some responsibility for the shitstorm they have caused and continue to.

Politics is a vocation.
Let's drastically cut their salaries, remove all their perks and stick their families in hotels temporarily instead of funding a second home in London for them, shall we? After all, they should be doing it for the good of the country.

Nursing is a career. Highly specialised, dedicated staff who spend years building an essential expertise. Treat them with the respect and pay they deserve.

I agree nurses need to be paid better and have better working conditions so I get the reasons they are striking. However, I'm also really concerned for the patients who will be impacted by the strike and hope that it does not impact the outcome of their treatment especially in relation to cancer treatments, maternity and mental health care. I think if these areas were to be covered as well as emergency care I would be fully behind the strike. I totally get that there needs to be a wake up call to the situation with nurses but I am concerned that there will be innocent patients caught in the middle who aren't to blame for any of this. It's a really hard situation.

@Toomanybooks22 I understand the concern re patients. But surely that concerns needs to be about patients on a daily basis and not just strike day? Those areas- and others- are woefully (and dangerously) understaffed daily already. And it is getting worse as staff of all levels and professions are leaving in droves. Nurses, doctors and AHP amongst others have been banging the drum about this for years and yet noone seems to care. The situation in social care is dire. The effect on hospital discharges is horrific and in turn this impacts A&E, outpatients etc. Yet noone seems to care about this on a daily issue and it's only seen as being of concern on 'strike' day? It's ridiculous.

Another thing is that the whole point of AFC was to standardise terms and conditions nationally. However there are now so many local agreements in place that the whole thing is a mess.

Loyalty is relied on a lot in the NHS, however there are no rewards for this. The way the pay structure is now is that someone that has been in post for a few years will be on the same money as someone who has been there 20 years. Would be nice to have some incentives for long term staff.

But it should be regional, down to regional demands and regional competition. Someone earning £30k in some cheaper areas of the North is well compensated compared to someone in expensive areas of the South.

Sorry I am going to have issue with this too, apologies. I think you have a valid argument if that long server has been an excellent performer. But I also don't agree that people should get an uplift just because they have been in post for a long time. They might have been doing a rubbish job, and everyone else knows it, whereas someone fairly new, may be punching well above their weight. Performance related pay would be the way to go.

Yes agreed, they have London weighting but that is where it ends. Think it needs a total overhaul tbh.

True but performance related pay is so administration heavy and relies on a robust appraisal system. It is just not possible currently. I have personally not had an appraisal for years.

I love it when posters who clearly don't have a clue say nurses are well paid. Most of them wouldn't know a hard day's work if it bit them on the arse.

Things like saying most patients have email or we should introduce performance related pay are laughable.

As is the suggestion that the nhs has too many managers or is so inefficient in comparison to the private sector.

Yes, the benefit packages within the nhs are good. They should be.

People are quick to moan when they can't get exactly what they want from the nhs, free at point of use. but also quick to be horrified at the suggestion we might need to pay for it?

Any discussion about higher earners wages are always justified by how hard they work, how stressful it is. They absolutely deserve their 6 firgure salary

But some how that doesn't apply to nurses because thy aren't making anyone any money?

Unfortunately I don't think the strikes will achieve anything.

The tories have fucked everything up so badly we are now looking at higher taxes for less services

How exactly do you think performance related pay would work in nursing?

Oh. You kept 6 people alive this week.

Gold star to you

Actually, currently the pay increments are meant to be performance related, in that if someone doesn't meet their targets then the increment can be postponed until they do. I have seen this happen rarely in practice, no one has time for this.