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?

Migrant nurses are not always the answer. I would much rather have a nurse trained in the uk.

I had a very bad experience when I was in hospital with sepsis. I had an incompetent migrant nurse. She could barely speak any English at all. She was very dramatic. For example she would take my temperature and leave the room shouting 'oh my god, too high'. She was unable to take blood effectively but would not stop trying, leaving me completely battered and bruised. The list could go on and on.
Give me a well trained nurse when I'm at my most vulnerable

I think the NHS go through fitts and starts in recruiting from abroad , 20years or so ago the hospital i worked in recruited quite a few nurses from the phillipines then there were cutbacks etc and now some trusts are back to recruting from abroad

Thanks for clarifying babycatcher I was confused because I was told someone I know was a band 9 nurse at a London hospital. She is only 40 and from abroad. She is management but more than likely a band 6 or 7. My aunt was a consultant OBGYN and had a salary of approx £150,000 (many many years service!)

Haven't seen anyone mention directly that our esteemed government also saw fit to cut bursaries for nursing students and applications have been falling since? www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nursing-applications-ucas-course-drop-nhs-grants-funding-debt-tuition-fees-costs-a8191546.html

This seems irrational but the whole point is that a health service coming apart at the seams is so much easier to privatise because people will be desperate for something to be done.

I take home £27000 a year.

Which will be mid £30'sk GROSS and well above national average, which is what we're talking about, so you're earning in the region of what a couple of other posters have been saying. The average "gross" wage is mid £20'sk and the govt proposal is £30k gross.

And yes recruiting overseas isn’t new.
I remember a program about it 15 years ago, saying it was actually an issue for the U.K. to do so as we are relying on people been trained abroad, therefore they are not paying for the training and stealing skills from countries that need both skills of those nurses/doctors as well as Not been able to afford to train people for nothing.

Interestingly enough, no one seems to ask themselves the question nowdays....

The reality is that the U.K. has been playing a game of spending the least amount possible to train its population and rely on other countries to do instead.
It’s a dangerous game because it means you dinntbhave the pool of well trained people in your own country.
It’s also worth noting that it’s not just nurses.
It’s teachers, engineers etc etc too (even though we don’t hear about them often)

uggmum you had one bad nurse. You have no idea why that was. You can’t just ascribe it to race.

30k debt just in tuition fees

Well that's a red herring for nurses because most of them won't earn enough to pay more than a small fraction of it back, if they stay in nursing and aren't one of the few that achieve the few band 8/9 roles.

Obviously restricting foreign nurses from working in the UK because they don't earn enough is ludicrous and short sighted. I suppose they could help the problem by increasing the salary for all nurses above the £30k and then we would not be training so many nurses who then leave the profession or go to work abroad where the pay and conditions are better.

We shouldn't be poaching and stealing nurses from developing countries, so this particular excuse for mass immigration is morally bankrupt as well as utterly stupid.

A novel concept: increase the nursing staff grade base salary and drop the stupid requirement for a degree. Go back to apprenticeship style training with enrolled nurses who can work their way up to registered level via on the job training.

The average Director of Nursing gets £130k -£140k in NHS. Within private sector regional nurse leads may be paid more and Chief nurses definitely more.

In U.K. there are about 11, 000 nurses earning over £100k. It’s entirely possible to reach that salary but you need to work long and hard at it and be prepared to move around.

Many, many nurses in specialist roles earn more than 50k.
A Deputy Director of Nursing on £85k might well have 20 years clinical experience plus a PhD and MBA.

Most nurses work as band 5s with ward managers on band 6 - although some trusts use higher banding more frequently as they believe it improves care and costs less overall. HCAs are band 2/3 and new associate nurses will be band 4.
The NHS is dependant on immigrant labour at all levels. Many young people in U.K. wouldn’t consider nursing because it’s hard work, long and antisocial shifts, relatively low paid in early career and sometimes not very nice (being hit, scratched or sworn at, clearing up faeces, not having time to go to the loo or have lunch). You have to do the hard grinding shift work to get to a higher level. You have to study in your own time and often pay for postgraduate qualifications.
If £22k is a onsidered a good salary, why aren’t the people saying that working as nurses?

The real issue is it takes 4 years to get an autonomous registered nurse (who needs to have A levels before doing training) and about 8/9 as a minimum for a Doctor. Brexit is likely to happen in April. Who will fill that gap?

uggmum

So your one bad experience tars them all??

I've worked with nurses from all over the world and seen some bad and some good exactly like all the British nurses I've worked with.

In my trust we have a lot of Indian nurses and I bloody love working with them. They train General before specialising in mental health so are great assets to a ward bringing a lot of knowledge with them. It would be a shame to lose that.

Oh and I'm a band 5, 4 years qualified and I earned 27k before tax last year. My take home this year is actually less because my pension contribution went up from 7.1 to 9.3%. Banf 6 roles in my trust are either community (many are being downgraded to band 5 though) or junior management. Most nurses will never move beyond band 5.

How are we going to recruit these people in future?

They will either have to increase wages which will add to inflation, or they will start bringing in more automation.

Fenallamaxwellspony. I'm not aspiring it to race. It is about insufficiently trained nurses practicing in the uk.

Training standards abroad are not as stringent as the uk.
The ward I was in was staffed with a handful of very poor nurses who could not communicate with their patients or maintain basic standards.

Which will be mid £30'sk GROSS and well above national average, which is what we're talking about, so you're earning in the region of what a couple of other posters have been saying. The average "gross" wage is mid £20'sk and the govt proposal is £30k gross.

My GROSS pay is £27k!

Ward managets are usually Band 7 not 6 Band 6,s sister/charge nurses

AamdC not in most trusts I visit. Band 7s are usually matrons covering several wards. Many trusts moved to lower grades and I know one where they are employing band 1 clinical staff now.

I work in a London intensive care unit which has a nursing vacancy rate of 24% and half of our nursing team (& medical staff actually) are international. We would not be able to exist without them.

On a different note, I do not understand the resentment towards nursing salaries- most of our nurses are on band 5-6. The overseas nurses start on a 5 (despite any previous experience) & can't get a band 6 until they have completed 2 post graduate courses (often a master level) in children's nursing, then intensive care nursing. Both courses are a year long. I am on top band7 with a masters, 20 years PICU experience & still work clinically. I don't think my wage is bad but that is it now - to earn more I would have to move away from patient care into management.

Ward managets are usually Band 7 not 6 Band 6,s sister/charge nurses

In my service band 6s are team leaders tasked with managing operational requirements alongside security ones and provide emergency response. Band 7s are non clinical and are senior manages. The head of healthcare is a band 8. Band 5s have responsibility for managing band 2's/3's. As a band 5 I'm responsible for annual leave, performance management and clinical supervision of lower bands.

Interesting point someone made above about it taking 4 years for a nurse to become truly autonomous, I would agree with this.

The timing of this post is funny. I have been qualified for ten years and i am top of band 5. There are very few job opportunities at band 6 in my area. The stress and impact on my life is starting to take its toll and I am considering leaving the profession. I am looking at shelf stacking jobs at our local supermarket and have been quite surprised that there won’t be large drop in income for me.

Maybe its different in Mental health than

Maybe its different in Mental health than

Perhaps. I'm a RMN but work in prisons. Nursing ratio is 1:50 on the detox unit. I'm the only qualified on shift. I make life changing decisions every day for £27k a year. I do believe I'm massively underpaid for the responsibility I hold.

My GROSS pay is £27k!

OK, but you said it was £27k take home, hence the confusion.

A minimum wage requirement is a very good idea. It will ensure that new migrants won't be a burden on the system. However the government desperately need to reconsider the NHS. They either need to fund it properly or means test access. I would say the same for state schools. It is absurd that professionals get paid what is essentially an unskilled wage. Inevitable consequence of the state getting too big. The government needs to decide what to prioritise and what to cut back. Delivering a shit standard of everything to everyone just isn't good governance is it?

Yes Fruit its not uncommon to be the only qualified nurse on shift on.the NHS wards either very, very common not to be sble to take a break due to no cover on a 12 hr shift patcularly at weekends

To be fair we are a team of clinical band 7s as a retention strategy- it seems counterproductive to spend years training/investing in good intensive care nurses only for them to leave due to lack of career progression. I wish other NHS trusts could be a respectful to their senior clinical teams