To ask if you support the proposed strike by Nursing and Midwifery staff?

[SeattleGraceMercyDeath]

For the first time in I think 32 years nursing staff have voted to go on strike and midwives, having never voted to strike in their history will be joining them in a four hour walkout from 7am on 13th October.

The NHS pay review recommended a 1% pay rise across the board, yet government decided they could ignore this and only award the rise to those at the top of their band and would take it away again next year. Despite awarding themselves an 11% pay rise after proclaiming they couldn't possibly ignore their review bodies recommendation.

Essential services will still be covered, eg Delivery suite, ITU etc.

Do you support the staff? If you are a frontline healthcare worker will you be striking? I'm not due to work that day but I will be at the picket line showing my support.

These are lean times where the country as a whole needs to save some money

Pay for senior executives has gone up.

Pay for MPs has gone up.

Senior civil servants get bonuses.

Open your eyes. We are not all in this together.

100% support this action. (I won't be as rcn member).

It doesn't go far enough.

Part of the action will be staff insisting on taking their (unpaid) break.

In what civilised workplace does that consitute disruptive strike action?

Excellent conditions? Really? Where?

Totally support the strike and I will be joining my colleagues on the picket line outside the ambulance station where I work as a paramedic.
Our service is haemorrhaging staff at an alarming rate, in part due to severe pressure from the Chief execs and demand from the public.
I've not had a pay rise in 3 years, prior to that it was a 1% rise for 2years.

Calls will still be answered and ambulances will still be sent to the most serious of cases, but we will make an impact - we have to.

i support the strike. I just wish the RCN would grow some balls and join unison on this.

1% is risible as it is. Then to take that away from those who are not yet on their full salary because they are moving up their band is divisive.
Add in the fact that it is non consolidated so they will be taking it away at the end of the pay year, so the promise of another 1% next year isnt in addition, its the same we got this year given back to us, so amounts to 0.5% pay rise in reality over the coming 2 years.
I have worked in the NHS for 30 years, there is so many examples of waste. the introduction of an internal market was one of them.
previously if we needed a pillow, some drugs, a piece of equipment, we phoned anther ward and borrowed it. now if we want to do that, the hospital is split up into business units and we have to fill in paperwork so that we get charged from our budget for borrowing stuff. This then necessitates employing pen pushes to monitor these budgets, deal with the paperwork generated (along with their admin staff etc). the amount of people working in a non clinical role within the hospital has grown out of all proportion. Want to cut wages without affecting frontline care, then cut these non jobs that only arose because of internal markets out

Totally support them, but if they are given a part rise then the government MUST fully fund it. The only way trusts could afford a pay rise is to cut more staff and services.

Hospital managers aren't too blame though, they're in the same boat, and are stuck in the middle between gov policy and the front line.

Oh and agree that the increase in non clinical staff is down to gov requirements for monitoring, performance management, bean counting.

meddie - so the bbc is correct that previously you got a cost of living type increase across the board and another for moving up within the pay band? I'm all for that being chopped - as it has everywhere else.

A 1% increase isn't that bad - inflation is 1.5% at the moment. what does seem madness though is that its not consolidated and is basically only for a year - thats just not normal practise elsewhere at all

So two wrongs make a right

I'm not sure how you or anyone can defend the lack of payrises for nurses without making noises about this.

A payrise of 1% is not wrong. Sickening pay increases for the already well off is, when those in charge are pocketing the rises while kicking everyone else.

Dreaminofsun. when a nurse is first employed they go on a pay band with about 7 increment points. this is to reflect that they are inexperienced and wont get the full rate for the job (top of their pay band) until they have been in the job years. once you reach the top of your band you only get potential annual increases ie a negotiated payrise. in all the years i have been nursing only during the Labour government did we get anywhere near a pay rise that matched or beat the current rate of inflation.
This 1% non consolidated was recommended by our pay review body (after 3-4 years of no rises at all). The government then decided only to give it to those at the top of their band already and not to staff who were progressing up their band. this is divisive. The increment is not an annual pay rise, its a progression towards the full pay for the job.
At the end of the financial year they will take the 1% off us. And offer us 1% again next year, so over 2years our pay will only rise by 1% ie 0.5% per year.
At the end of this period if they offer us a consolidated across the board increase its still coming from our base rate of pay for this year, so if they offered us 3% in effect that would be 3% pay rise in 3 years. We are being well and truly shafted and along with that pitted against each other

Iggly - you're right, but the strike isn't about whether MP's should get 11%. (They shouldn't). It's about whether nurses, midwives, etc deserve another 1% on top of their existing package.

They shouldn't. These are lean times - a 1% pay rise would have to be paid for from somewhere else and people in need are already suffering because of the cuts (which have not really bitten yet).

NHS style medical care is workable and affordable in other countries.

Actually, the only country that uses our system is Cuba! Most other countries have realised that government-delivered healthcare is pretty poor. I think the fairest and best system is the French, German, Swiss etc - those without the means to pay private insurance are subsidised by the taxpayer.

here

For all it's faults the NHS has been judged as the most efficient and best value for money healthcare system in the world.

And yes, I support midwives in their industrial action.

The Commonwealth Fund is a focus group which campaigns for government healthcare (and even they flagged that the NHS is not terribly good at keeping patients alive!)

The WHO reports are less politicised and make sobering reading.

Anyway, off-topic now!

I totally support this strike. Everyone in these kind of jobs should be paid far more than they are now.

Goverment awarding themselves a payrise is just disgusting.

Good Luck to you all,

You don't progress through the band as a time served thing either despite what the government and the media tell you. It's appraisal/achievement linked. You don't achieve, you don't get. But really, until you're at the top of your band you're bloody cheap labour.

And those saying you don't get breaks etc do you also work 13 hour shifts (minimum, without unpaid overtime) on your feet for all of that time? I suspect there are few professions like that. Those working in an office might not get a break but they can usually eat at their desk whilst working through.

Fully support them they deserve a massive pay rise unlike the slime bags in Westminster who just awarded themselves another large pay rise...

Completely support them. They work bloody hard for comparatively little and it's shocking that the government are trying to deny them this pay rise.

The argument that these are lean times would be fair enough if it were applied consistently. Because it isn't and because there are fairer ways to reduce government spending I oppose the lack of a 1% payrise.

Just came home to the news the NMC are raising our professional fees as well. Fees that we have to pay or we can't legally work. Feeling very down tonight

Me too Seattle.

Paying ten pounds a month to do my job. A job in which I get paid less per hour than some people on MN pay their cleaners. A job in which we get frequently slated and rarely praised or thanked.

I've had enough of nursing.

Fully support the strike, 100%. Admin worker in the NHS.

To the person who said we have job security. Really?! Why is that 350 jobs are going in my Trust and I may have to reapply for my own job?! We are going through an admin review, basically we are being downgraded. But, that's okay, everything in the garden is rosy! NOT!!

"I get paid less per hour than some people on MN pay their cleaners"

This is not confined to nurses though! When I was working in the UK I was expected to do so many hours that my cleaner took home more than I was paid for the hours she worked. And that's after a degree, 4 years of post grad and training and 10 years experience!

Nobody wants a race to the bottom, but the people in the private sector who are currently being shafted from all angles are the ones who ultimately have to pay for any additional perks or a payrise. And at the moment, many of us cannot even save for a decent retirement for ourselves.

Based on looking at DH's contract etc, NHS T&C's are good (i.e. above market), the redundancy pay is good (trust me, you don't want to be on stat minimum!) and the pension is bloody out-of-this-world good, even after the reforms. Most of us are now in our sixth year of "efficiency savings" and as a country we really do need to cut our cloth to suit our means.