AIBU the high skilled immigration salary threshold

[Tantrumschmantrum]

The government are looking at a minimum threshold at how much you would earn as a highly skilled immigrant (over 30k) BUT then they keep bringing up that we need nurses, which is a skilled profession where the top end of their salary to my knowledge barely meets this threshold. Is it just me or is this ridiculous?

Not just you.
The NHS would collapse without all sorts of overseas staff, in all sorts of roles. The vast majority of whom earn nothing like £30K.

There are plenty of young people who could be nurses but is expensive to get the training. Make it easy for them to train.

Plenty of nurses leave the profession - good nurses- for reasons of pay, shifts and extreme stress. Deal with that and the threatened collapse of NHS without cheap immigrant labour becomes invalid.

Yes we need immigration, (and emigration) so we can learn and profit from international experience - but cheap labour should be dealt with for all our sakes.

I don't know where you get your nursing salaries from, a newly qualified nurse is a band 5, so up to £29.6K, most nurses are band 6, so upto £36.6K, plus all their allowances and shift premium. This myth that nurses are poorly paid really needs to be busted, they are paid well above average salaries for the UK.

www.nhsemployers.org/your-workforce/pay-and-reward/agenda-for-change/pay-scales/annual

with HCAS takes a band 5 up to £35.5K, and a band 6 up to £43.3K

www.nhsemployers.org/your-workforce/pay-and-reward/agenda-for-change/pay-scales/including-hcas

It's ridiculous you are right. But agree with pp - more investment needs to be made to train and retain our own population. Otherwise we end up with an uneducated workforce who can only do low paid work, and waste money training people who then drop out due to stress.

Wait, so a band 9 nurse can get nearly £105,000 a year (with 5 years experience)? That’s almost as much as a consultant!

Well then it might force the nhs to pay heath care professionals a wage that is relevant to their skill set/ qualifications rather than recruiting abroad, keeping the wages low. There is a reason there is a shortage in this country.

I have six years worth of study under my belt and earn just over 40k which is an ok wage but compared to my peers who went into other proffesions I earn a pittance.

I wouldn’t encourage anyone to undertake a career in healthcare if they actually want to earn a good salary.

up to. Newly qualified nurses start at the lower end of the band, so 22k.

Sparkle I don’t know any band 9 nurses! Most get stuck at a 6. 7 is matrons/department managers/specialist nurses.
8 is also pretty rare and that is still under 50k.

MacosieAsunter except that’s not how it works. Starting salary is bottom of band with a year on year increase, so if you look at these bands from the Royal College of Nursing, it could be 8 - 10 years before a nurse earns £30k... www.rcn.org.uk/employment-and-pay/nhs-pay-scales-2016-17

Junior doctors all fall under the cap. As do social workers.

Band 9 is for the most senior staff in management. I mean really senior management. A ward sister will typically be a band 7. Then matrons and other tiers of normal management get spread through 8a to d.
Most nurses patients see are 5-7. For the skill set required to be a band 7 I don't think it's greatly paid. But yes, better than average.
Sorry to derail.

MacosieAssunter, I've never seen a HCA job at band 5 or 6. Generally 3, sometimes 4 with special training.

Just lol at band 9 nurses.

Well actually most nurses are Band five /six. Staff nurses. etc and whilst the top of band five is ok it takes quite a few years to get there with year on year incremental pay rises if yoy work on the wards shift enhancements rop the wages up but a lor of the hours are very unsocial

I thought they'd already announced that the threshold would be £50,000??

22k is a great starting salary! I don't think I will ever earn that in my job. Maybe I should be a nurse...

I don't know where you get your nursing salaries from, a newly qualified nurse is a band 5, so up to £29.6K, most nurses are band 6, so upto £36.6K, plus all their allowances and shift premium. This myth that nurses are poorly paid really needs to be busted, they are paid well above average salaries for the UK.

Hahaha! Most nurses are NOT band 6! Band 6 is a management band.

I'm a band 5 nurse, working in a prison. I work 37.5 hours a week, 12.5 hour shifts. I work 25 hours a fortnight so 1/3 of my hours are unsociable. I also get a prison allowance.

I take home £27000 a year.

22k is a great starting salary! I don't think I will ever earn that in my job. Maybe I should be a nurse...

Do you comfort people as they die in pain?

Is your job highly skilled?

Do peoples lives depend on your skill?

Most nurses are band 5. Band 6 is junior sister level. A nurse from abroad is very unlikely to get a band 6 as their first nhs job. No matter what experience you have from abroad your first nhs job will be bottom of band 5. So nowhere near 30k. I've known top of band 5 British nurses leave and go to Australia for a few years and on returning to the UK have to start at bottom of band 5 again.

This immigration cap won't take any shift payments into account.

Maybe exceptions for the 30k cap will be made for jobs where there's a shortage?

I think it might be more sustainable to train more nurses and retain them (by giving them reasonable working conditions) than to constantly import nurses willing to be treated like shit so that they can send money home to their families.

Take home £27k.....?
Or pre tax £27k

The problem here is if it was private industry and they really needed the workers they’d have the flexibility to up the pay to 30k when they need foreign workers.

Because it’s the nhs they don’t have that flexibility.

They’re always talking about markets improving the nhs and schools and whatever... we’ll what about paying market rates?

22k is a great starting salary! I don't think I will ever earn that in my job. Maybe I should be a nurse...

Go and train then. 3 years of no income, 30k debt just in tuition fees. Spend your career working 12 hour shifts with no break, nights, weekends, Xmas day.

@MeAgainSparkle as a band 9 nurse (if that really even exists more than occasionally in a huge hospital) you have trained and worked for enough years you are basically as qualified as a consultant, that is an exceptionally senior post. When it says 5 years, it means 5 years being the band 9- prior to that you've probably spent 30 years working your way through the NHS and studying in that time which is always a prerequisite

We don't have any band 9 nurses. Highest I know of is 8c. After that they tend to move onto exec level salaries, which aren't covered by agenda for change.

The head of women and childrens at my hospital is band 8 so the only post I can imagine being band 9 would be the chief nurse/nurse director position. So one per hospital? Maybe a few more in big hospitals?