AIBU to ask if you would support a strike by midwifery/nursing staff?

[HolidayArmadillo]

Just that really, would you support a strike by frontline NHS midwifery/nursing staff? Following the 1% 'pay rise' news (which is actually a pay cut in real terms and only for those who are experienced staff at the top of their band) more and more of my colleagues have been saying that if it came to it they would strike, many have been reluctant up until this point as no one wants to disrupt women/patient care but the workforce is becoming burnt out, disillusioned and unsafe.

Just wondering what the mumsnet collective has to say?

For the last time UNIONS ARE ONLY ALLOWED TO STRIKE OVER PAY!

In that case, no - you shouldn't strike....

IamRechargingthankYou your post is extraordinarily naïve and insulting.

As for the people who think that pay should be related to academic qualifications then bring it on - I've got straight A's at A-level (no A*'s in my day), a 1st from Oxford and a PhD also from Oxford and yet I'm paid about £100K less than the significantly less educated PM of this country

On a more serious note, all those people who continue to bash the NHS and the public sector, well, you will end up with the public sector that you deserve if you continue in this way.

It's also very easy to go on and on about wastage in the public sector. Yes, there is a lot of waste. I have spent the last 10 years of my career carrying out research into how the NHS can work more efficiently. But there is also wastage and downright dodgy dealing in the private sector. It's just that, unless we have something like the banking crisis, we don't tend to hear about it....remember the libor scandal? Hmm, that wasn't public sector was it!

Working in an office at 65 is not comparable to a mw or nurse working a 14 hour shift with no break ( not even a loo break) and having to be on her feet the entire time.

Making all the beds on the wards does me. My back is agony most of the time! I seriously don't know how I'll be able to do it as I get older.

Nursey Come join the dark side primary care! The money is shit but the work is a different kind of busy. I couldn't work on the wards now, it would break me. Much respect to those that do!

No way could I deliver a baby at the age of 65+, or do night shift. Having said that we do have a full time midwife nearly 70 who still puts the graft in. Doesn't do shifts though.

I'm pregnant and struggle to even reach my patients in their cots! And don't even mention not getting lunch til 4pm. Bloody starving by then.

Yes I would.

Didn't nurses strike in Oz and within hours got a much fairer deal?

It seems the only reason nurses get a tough deal is because they are too nice to go on strike.

I think the Ozzy nurses felt that the danger to patient care was as bad if not worse from understaffing etc, and that compromising patient safety for a short while actually improved patient care from thereon, and is thought to have saved more lives than it endangered.

Having scan read posts and as a very old paediatric nurse/midwife working on a neonatal intensive care wards. Who do you think it was who taught the very naïve junior doctors to insert umbilical catheters, insert cannulas in minute veins and above all intubate collapsed babies. It certainly wasn't the paediatric consultants or registrars it was us lowly nurses

zeezeek the thing is that we are not paying for the wastage and scandal in the private sector like we are in the public.

Where there is criminality (you mentioned LIBOR fixing) then of course it should be, and is, dealt with appropriately in both the private and the public sectors, but that is not really relevant to this debate.

I remember when I was about 17 weeks pregnant, I started my shift at 7:15am and looked after a high risk lady. I was in the room with her full on all morning, luckily she didn't mind me having a drink in the room (I asked) but I couldn't leave her for more than a minute or so as the trace was so poor. At 2pm I was on my knees, I'd not eaten since 6:30am my blood sugars were dropping and I came out of the room to see if someone could cover me for a quick break - ward was heaving and we were short staffed. It was 3:30pm before I ate, and 10pm when I got home to eat a meal. Short staffing meant I couldn't get my break, we can't afford to employ anymore midwives at present.

These are the conditions I work in sometimes, although I'm one of the lucky ones. I have friends in London with worse conditions. A measly pay rise would go a little way to making me feel a little appreciated.

I hate David Cameron and his party.

Well said MrChow I loathe Cameron and his arse lickers!!

zeezeek the thing is that we are not paying for the wastage and scandal in the private sector like we are in the public.

BANKERS

I support and would encourage nurses quitting the profession for another. I do not think strikes will get them anywhere unfortunately. The only way qualified staff will get better pay and conditions is if there are less of them to call upon.

I hope the rcm and rcn do call a strike. I for one would strike.

I have been in the NHS since 1986. I was one of the junior doctors working 120 hour weeks and paid less than the cleaner overnight. But I was in control, I knew all my patients, I could talk to relatives and answer their questions. The nursing staff all knew me, we had few bank staff and the Charge nurse knew everyone. Now the junior doctors work fewer hours (allegedly) the nurses are so busy they don't know the patients well and because they don't know the doctors on the "team"as well they end up calling the doctors more often (when I was working I always went to the wards at about 10.30pm so if there was anything non urgent they would keep it until then.
Also they employ "bank staff" too often instead of filling posts so there is no continuity.
And we all have to deal with new initiatives to improve patient care. Give us the staff and go back to basics and both doctors and nurses can get back to what they want to do and that is care for people.