Nurses - what do you think to the pay offer?

[BabbleBee]

Initially I thought 5%, hmmm ok. Then I looked at the breakdown and it’s around £1500 a year extra for your average B5. That’s not going to make much difference in the monthly pay is it….

[ChopSuey2]

Just to add, when I say exhausted I don't mean physically. I'm mentally drained. Work has badly affected my mental health. I didn't know what burn out really meant until I dealt with stuff at work in 2020/2021. I haven't recovered and am not sure I ever will.

[guessingme]

@HotSince82

Ex nurse here.

It's ridiculously low.
Your skills are transferable and you are graduates.
It's not as if the NHS holds you all captive.

However it's a ploy towards privatisation. If they piss you off enough and then sweep in and tell you that you can have a salary commensurate with your worth but only via privatisation then the deal will be sealed. You'll vote for it and who could blame you?

You'll have played directly in to their hands but you didn't realistically have any other choices; unless you moved in to pharma or the private sector and there are only so many of those roles to go around.

You'll get your pay rise when we get health insurance. Not a minute before.

Now about midwives then? Because you can't privatise midwifery care

[walkies123]

@guessingme why can't midwifery be privatised? I do believe there is already some aspect of that going on. I've definitely heard of affluent mums to be paying for midwives for home births

[GPTec1]

Now about midwives then? Because you can't privatise midwifery care

Of course you can, what do you think it was pre NHS? both sets of Grandparents were born at home.

Hospice care, Dentistry and adult social care are all privately provided and very limited access to these services.

Sky News reporting that private health care companies are offering up to £5000 for Doctors to come and work for them and higher wages too.

No or limited NHS consultants or Junior Doctors = no Midwifery services.

[Weenurse]

@BabbleBee

Scotland is very beautiful… but if I was going to move I’d want to go somewhere warmer!

Come to Australia. Ratios of 1 nurse to 4 patients on a morning shift in Victorian public hospitals

[Lipfloss]

It's all we will get whilst we are lumped in with so many other people- I agree with a PP. Its not about divide and conquer, its about us needing to grow a backbone and realise that we have leverage as the shortages are not only shit for us but also for patients and trusts (as they have to pay £££s for agency staff to cover gaps). We should separate out and not be shy about saying we are trained professionals and don't deserve to have had a real term pay cut. Until that happens we will largely be offered what they think everyone in AfC is affordable and deserve. Jds will get a higher % than 5 (and rightly so).

[RaspberriesToYouToo]

If you aren't an NHS worker, will this now encourage you to retrain and join the NHS? Will you encourage your children to join?

No, and only so that they have skills wanted in other countries and can get the hell out of this one.

A female-led profession having to pay for training and work offered 5%, while male-dominated bus drivers and lorry drivers are on £15 an hour, and no training costs or shitty placements? What a surprise in an increasingly sexist shit hole of a country.

I wanted to train in health care after my profession was destroyed by political use of technology. But as a female with young kids I can’t, nor do I want to get into £70k of debt to work 12 - 14 hour shifts with no break after years of paying private rent. I could have done so on the continent, or in the past - I used to help train baby boomers and early gen xers changing profession but couldn’t afford to stop work myself as a private tenant, and still can’t.

Enough is enough. The U.K. government has been shafting all of us younger than 50 for all of my working life. Enough is beyond enough.

[Kindofthisnotthat]

@ChopSuey2 absolutely agree. I've finally bitten the bullet and taken flexi retirement so now working 17 3/4 hrs per week.
I've ended up with a herniated disc and chronic back pain and high blood pressure. Also had long covid for almost 2 years which has left lasting issues.

[RaspberriesToYouToo]

As for the turncoat useless unions and professional organisations, that is exactly how we arrived at this situation. We need new ones, built from the grassroots again.

[Lipfloss]

@RaspberriesToYouToo

As for the turncoat useless unions and professional organisations, that is exactly how we arrived at this situation. We need new ones, built from the grassroots again.

The fire brigade Union are an example of a decent union, and it shows with the pay rises they have secured.

[ChopSuey2]

@Kindofthisnotthat sorry to hear you've had such poor luck with your health. I hope Flexi retirement is working well for you 😊

It is a sorry state of affairs when people can't do the job they love long term because of the impact on their wellbeing. The average length of career for my profession is seven years. That's not because people don't want to do the job they trained for, it's burn out and moral injury.

[ChopSuey2]

Just found this hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1962-05-14/debates/f1b11aac-d7ae-4eba-b96f-246286ebef89/Nurses(Pay)

60 years later and we're still having the same debates about pay and staffing.

[Sunshineandrainbow]

@KeHuyWinner

It's for current nurses and will be calculated in monthly pay I'd guess.

I can't state that's factual but can't see how the NHS will seek out past employees to give them cash. No idea how that would even be practically possible.

Is the rise just for current nurses or all bands?

[GPTec1]

According to a Govt minister on Sky News this morning, pay rise is coming out of existing NHS budget, which is certainly going to help reduce work loads on staff and goes against the deal supposedly reached with unions.

[LookingOldTheseDays]

@GPTec1

According to a Govt minister on Sky News this morning, pay rise is coming out of existing NHS budget, which is certainly going to help reduce work loads on staff and goes against the deal supposedly reached with unions.

So they've done the same as what they've done to education. Staff get a rise but it comes at the expense of everything else. Hospitals will only be able to fund it through redundancies (no-one will lose their job, but vacancies won't be recruited to), changing their skill mix to have more people on lower bands, or cutting services in other ways.

[JennyDarlingRIP]

It seems in line with other public services, probation got 4% practitioner band is 23-30k higher level additionally qualified practitioner band is 30-40k these are the officers who manage the highest level of risk in the country. Management start on 40k this is quite a big jump all round compared to the ten year pay freeze they've just come out of (similar to NHS) . Police in our area got similar and our chief constable has just issued a statement saying he is losing experienced officers to double glazing sales and scaffolding.
I'm not saying it is enough it isn't, but it was roughly what I expected given the pubic sector area I work in.

[LookingOldTheseDays]

The NHS has had years of below inflation rises, but it hasn't had a 10 year pay freeze.

Agree that probation pay is appalling for the level of skilled work.

[GPTec1]

@LookingOldTheseDays

So they've done the same as what they've done to education. Staff get a rise but it comes at the expense of everything else. Hospitals will only be able to fund it through redundancies (no-one will lose their job, but vacancies won't be recruited to), changing their skill mix to have more people on lower bands, or cutting services in other ways.

Yes atm there is a 14bn cost cutting program, so make that 18bn.

At the expense of equipment, buildings, IT and staff recruitment.

All the things that will help reduce waiting lists and make the NHS more efficient, NHS IT is appalling, we ve an aging number of scanners and buildings estates are terrible.

Our local rehab hospital has two water systems, despite both coming from the same water company, one can't be used for drinking due to the pipes it flows through, the replacement of the lead pipes postponed but they are still adding another 20 beds to the same building.

[GPTec1]

@LookingOldTheseDays

The NHS has had years of below inflation rises, but it hasn't had a 10 year pay freeze.

Agree that probation pay is appalling for the level of skilled work.

It did have a few years at 0% and 1%.

[LookingOldTheseDays]

But not a ten year freeze. It's had better rises than the civil service over that period, for example.

I'm not saying it's enough, it isn't. Austerity has been an appalling policy.

[PartingGift]

@headstone

I suppose most nurses could probably do a bank shift to make up for any lost earnings.

The problem with this is logic is:

1. The bank pay rate at my hospital has not increased at all since I qualified back in 2015. It's just slightly over a pound more than my current hourly rate at the bottom of band 6.

1. My current band 6 job will not pay me for any overtime. So I cannot do overtime (which would be time and a half) for extra hours; I can only work on the bank in other areas of the hospital.

1. I often work over 37.5 hours already, and don't really take a full 30 minute lunch break. I do claim some hours in lieu, but we've been so short staffed recently that I haven't. I don't want to work extra hours, especially somewhere which is also short staffed. I have made myself do it in the past when I had to, but it leads to burn out.

1. A lot of nurses work crazy shifts and switch between nights and days regularly, they should be able to rest on their days off, not think I need to pick up another shift.

1. There aren't always extra shifts available where you work, and in some places they can get snapped up quickly. This means working bank in new places, not knowing the speciality, the door codes, the staff, where stuff is kept etc etc. I've done shifts where I was working bank and everyone else was also on the bank - it's a bit like the blind leading the blind and not ideal.

1. All of the above make me personally think, why am I putting myself through the stress of this band 6 job, when I am only taking home an extra £34.45 per month compared to my band 5 job? I may as well go back to my old band 5 job, go part time, and work agency shifts which pay over twice what the bank rate is at my hospital. I would have to work agency shifts at other hospitals because you can't work agency at the hospital where you are employed.

...the problem is that if a lot of people think sod this, I'm going to go part time and work on the bank or agency to top up my lost earnings from (yet another) crap pay rise, then the staffing problem is going to get worse and worse.

The best solution would really be a fair pay rise.

[Postapocalypticcowgirl]

Is none of this year's pay offer consolidated?

Just for balance, teachers are striking over an average 5% pay increase this year- because it's in effect a pay cut when inflation is so high. 5% isn't movement towards pay restoration.

I really think the bargaining group made the wrong decision to call off strikes and enter talks with preconditions attached (my understanding is that's why they are recommending the offers).

If you're unhappy, I encourage you to speak to your local union officers too, and let them know you are up for the fight.

[RoobarbandCustud]

B5s paying back student loans for degrees that are essential for their role are effectively earning less than unqualified staff who spent the three years degree holders spent studying, earning. Why on earth do we put up with this.

[GoodChat]

@RoobarbandCustud

B5s paying back student loans for degrees that are essential for their role are effectively earning less than unqualified staff who spent the three years degree holders spent studying, earning. Why on earth do we put up with this.

Compulsory degrees to work for a government service should be government funded.

They should raise NI by the 1% they reduced it by and fund NHS education properly.

[RaspberriesToYouToo]

@GoodChat

Compulsory degrees to work for a government service should be government funded.

They should raise NI by the 1% they reduced it by and fund NHS education properly.

Indeed. As they used to be.