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?

The government and the media would like the public to think its a payrise. It plays right into their hands for the public not to support it.

I think someone up thread explained the concept of payscales really well.

Anne
Please see below:

A nurse starts at the bottom of their band to reflect inexperience then gets yearly increments until they reach the top of their band which is the actual pay for the job. This takes about 7 years. During this time they have a number of gateways which they have to achieve to continue up their grade. So effectively the government are getting cheap nursing until they reach the top of their band.To sell these increments as pay rises to the public is disingenuous

If the incremental was scrapped, they'd have to pay the top of the band straight away.

My working day.

6.00 get up for an early shift having got home at 11.00pm from a late shift which should have finished at 9.
7.00 arrive on ward having paid to park.
7.10 take handover from night nurse who has not had a break.
7.30 drug round. Takes a long time with many interruptions. Patients complain when drugs are late but also when breakfast is delayed or the ward stinks because a patient has had the audacity to crap on the commode. Which do I deal with first?
8.30 Patient washes. Contrary to popular opinion, we are not too posh to wash and this is how we mostly get to know our patients.
10.00 ward round with the doctor who doesn't know can't be added to read the notes of the patients.
12.00 try and do the stuff from the ward round e.g. discharge planning, ordering tests etc.
12.30 lunch. Drug round, feeding patients. 8 patients, 3 need feeding and there's only me. Plus patients need turning/toileting. IV drugs need to be drawn up and checked.
2.00 Relatives demanding to see doctor who has mysteriously disappeared.
Bed manager arrives to insist on discharging patients to completely inappropriate destinations.
3.00 handover to late shift
Cry
4.00 (in my dreams)
Go home to family.

Yes, we should strike.

No, I'm not sure I could support it. Although I'd have a lot of sympathy with it. My ds was stillborn, and I'm pg again. Even if a skeleton staff were available, if my routine scans & checks were delayed a problem with growth could be missed for a few extra days and that's all it could take for the same thing to happen again. Even if I weren't pg, the knowledge that that could be someone else taking home a memory box rather than a child means the risk is not one I want taken.

Fwiw I worked for the NHS for 13 years, and I agree completely with what thumbwitch posted. But I don't think striking will help in any case, unfortunately it would risk lives and this govt won't shift anyway.

retro I don't agree, I work outside the public sector now and it really isn't anything like working in the NHS.

I'm not sure what the answer is tho :(

25 years experience here and haven't actually noticed much difference whatever govt in power.
We started 12 hour shifts well before 2010 election as cost cutting measure and failed to get breaks from outset.
When we were only there 8 hours it was just about possible to manage ,now 12 plus hours without break is terrible.
No,not just terrible,unsafe.
I hate being asked to check or give intravenous or central line drugs at end of shift,I can hardly trust myself to do it.
I don't really see myself striking,I work in paediatrics and couldn't think of abandoning vulnerable sick children.
Am at top of grade now so no more incremental rises for me.

No I wouldn't support it. Firstly due to only getting 1% in my private sector job payrise.

Secondly, I always supported midwives until I went into labour. The ones I met were rude, horrible and unprofessional (not saying all are). For example when I cried with pain they told me 'why are you crying, you're having a baby, I thought you wanted one?' told me to go away and have breakfast when I was telling them something was wrong and thank fuck an obstetrician took over and realised something really was wrong and saved dds life.

So no, I have no sympathy for midwives. Oh and they were more interested in chatting through the night at their station than helping me breastfeed.

Without getting into a my job is worse than yours I'm willing to bet no one in the private sector has bled into their underwear because there is no toilet on the ward that they can't leave because they are the only qualified member of staff. Our antenatal ward regularly runs on only one qualified member of staff overnight, plus an hca, you're only on an antenatal ward if you need to be and there are a lot of high risk situations, everyone is pregnant so the amount of patients is actual double what it appears on first glance. All it takes is for one placenta praevia to start bleeding and a prem labourer to feel pressure and you're completely screwed. That level of responsibility is overwhelming and the government just can't understand it.

No I wouldn't and I say that as someone as an ExNHS worker.

DH is in another public sector group, the Armed Forces, where some are getting a 1% rise. We don't think he is, he is at the top of his rank, but have you seen how much the Forces have been cut? They have no right to strike. He works his arse off, and is lucky if he gets a break at all in the day. He oversees his team and has to check their work, if he misses something that hasn't been done right a fighter jet could fall from the sky.

He has spent 4 months overseas recently, acting in the next rank up because they don't have enough. He wasn't paid for that rank as he should be. There has been no time at work to write his team's assessments, in the last 2 weeks, so he has been doing them at home in the evening and at weekends. There is no extra pay for that as overtime doesn't exist.

Yesterday I had to go to the hospital for some tests. I was called through and the nurse was clearly thinking of another patient when she was talking to me. She said she needed the doctor to write up the drug went off and came back flustered. She asked what I was there for, I said I didn't know (I did) because it was the only way I knew she would check my notes. She came back 10 minutes later and said I had to go for blood tests before they started, and apologised for the confusion as they had another patient called Anne in later that day. I'm not called Anne. It was 8:30am and I was the only person there. She had no excuse. 3 other nurses were laughing and giggling around the photocopier. I don't see why they'd need to strike.

If hospital staff do go on strike no doubt they will bring in the military nurses and use other members in any capacity that they can.

Oh and yes when I worked in a private nursery I bled through my trousers onto a chair. I'm not quite sure why that matters though. I loved my job, but the pay was shit, and I mean shit.

SuffolkNWhat - well said.

No one in the public sector will deny that some of their terms and conditions are better than the private sector, BUT, those t&C and pensions have always (and still do) come at a price and that price is (and always ahs been) a lower salary than equivalent private sector levels.

Instead of the private sector continually complaining about public sector "perks" maybe they should fight for equivalent T&C. Or maybe they don't want to take the pay cut?

However, despite my bitchy comments above, I do feel that we all are falling into the government's hands of private sector over public. Why can't we admit that there are pros and cons with each sector and that actually we ALL contribute to this country and the economy in our own ways and we ALL deserve respect from our government. And NONE of us get it.

By dividing us this government wankers are just sitting back and laughing because we are all too busy bitching at each other and are ignoring the plain facts that we are all being fucked over.

If hospital staff do go on strike no doubt they will bring in the military nurses and use other members in any capacity that they can.

The military nurses already work within the NHS when they are not operational except for a small number who will have other obligations.(those on permanent aeromed & practice nurses)

Absolutely, Holiday. Can't leave the ward, as frequently the only qualified nurse on duty in case a patient arrests etc. Management have decreed that nurses should not drink on the ward as it doesn't look professional. So while they are sat on their arses in their plush offices we are expected to last the shift without a drink because we can't leave the ward because of their cuts.

Sorry but saying the private sector is better paid than the public sector isn't true.

Nurses are well paid,as are teachers and the police.

Soldiers who risk their lives on the front line,endure living apart from loved ones,move frequently,endure cuts which endanger their lives and actually get shite pay are the only public sector I sympathise with tbh.

But you never gear them whining.

I know military nurses work in some hospitals, Penny, but they don't work in all of them.

If there was a strike, and the Government could use them, it would be my opinion that they would.

Sure but all I was trying to say was that as the military nurses already work within the NHS if there was a strike there are no military nurses to cover.

I really really feel for MW.

Over six years ago a friend worked on the maternity reception at a hospital and said the poor MW were breaking under massively increased work load - and yet no back up. no extra funds and no extra staff.

I wrote to my MP who was con, and wrote to Labour and they said yadayadayada....then conservatives came to power and again, nothing.

I think our maternity services are broken.

I think MW should make themselves heard.

There's hardly any military any more, tbh!

Without all of the public sector this country would be in the shit. Literally.

I can't believe that we don't get the 1% if we are not at top of band. The whole point of increments is we increase in value as we increase in skill and experience. If I go on a course and learn a new skill/add a new string to my bow/ take on some more responsibility I don't get a bonus or anything. The increments in the bands are supposed to be my reward.
It was a totally separate thing from an inflation pay rise and it is an insult to treat if as anything other than that. I am becoming more disillusioned with the nhs. A lot of my friends have already abandoned it for better pay and hours and workload in the private sector where they appear to realise the value of their skills. The only thing that is keeping me here at the moment is the fact that I am starting a family.

MW are also on a front line supporting people who do loose their babies, people who are butchered, cut, and people who do die, people who are in life and death situations.

When you are that vulnerable you need good MW, to help you. Babies are most likely to die on the day they are born.

The front line of Life.

Iaminvisible - true!

Most jobs have a pay band, and people start at the bottom and work their way up it over time, but nowhere else do they have annual increments like this, it just doesn't happen.

Our family has not had a pay rise since the beginning of the CC, we have lost a large amount of income as well.

I still want MW taken care of.