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?

To be fair we are a team of clinical band 7s as a retention strategy

My trust is currently looking at uplifting some band 5 staff nurses to band 6 clinical specialists as a retention strategy. It needs to do something, retention in the area I work in (forensic mental health) is shocking. Average "lifespan" of a forensic nurse in our trust is 3 years yet it's one area where experience is so crucial.

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

Is it common to have 50 unwell patients though?

There is no "need" for the NHS to import nurses. If they just raised salaries enough they would (in the long term) get as many nurses as they need from the UK.

Importing people who will work for less due to a desire to come to the UK is just away to get around the fact that market forces are telling them they aren't paying enough to fill these jobs.

Yes, importing is a trick that does work to lower the NHS wage bill below what it would need to be in a closed system. But, as with all attempts to cheat market forces, there will be costs somewhere else we will end up paying as a consequence.

Increasing the population size year-after-year until some distant time in the future is not really a good long-term plan for the country.

No not physically unwell patients , Fruit , i worked for a time in alcohol and drug detox its hard but no we didnt have 50 patients do you have any Genera trainec nurses at the prison?

FruitCider
I think prison nursing is a whole different ballgame. I got a job in a prison when i first qualified but the funding fell through before I could start. I certainly feel I dodged a bullet (Especially since the what after the NHS lost the service and it's now run by a private company). I work with a former prison nurse and he said the conditions in prisons makes us look overstaffed which I find unbelievably scary.

For the record, I am an immigrant, and my perfect world would be one where anyone is free to move to any country. It's not that I'm anti-immigration, it's that I'm against lying to ourselves about the issue is. The issue is that in the UK healthcare is monopolised by the public sector, who use their monopoly to force below-market wages for jobs, then solve the the problem with a workaround with hidden costs.

No not physically unwell patients , Fruit , i worked for a time in alcohol and drug detox its hard but no we didnt have 50 patients do you have any Genera trainec nurses at the prison?

Yes we have an adult nurse or paramedic on the urgent care team, a nurse (mh, ld, or adult) or paramedic on reception, a healthcare assistant on urgent care, a healthcare assistant on detox, and around 6 pharmacy technicians doing medication on general wings. We also have a planned care team. However on the detox unit we are expected to provide holistic care eg we do all the planned care, urgent care, medication and detox related care for the 50 patients.

I work with a former prison nurse and he said the conditions in prisons makes us look overstaffed which I find unbelievably scary

Yes your colleague is correct.

I cant beleive your only paid a band five tbh Fruit.

AamdC but apparently £22k is a GOOD starting salary for my job according to some on this thread and £27k is a LOT of money 🙄

Indeed Fruit

@FruitCider I work in the justice system and the conditions and staffing levels in prisons are so horrific (it's only the daily mail who think they are holiday camps, anyone who has been inside them knows the reality). Nursing of any kind is incredibly difficult, to do it in those conditions with a large very very difficult, often violent patient group is just amazing. You definitely deserve a lot more than you are paid. As for security, I know you won't have the back up from prison officers you once might have had because staffing has been cut to the bone and the basic starting salary for a PO is under £18000, I would pay that amount not to have to be a prison officer so it's no wonder they can't recruit either. There is a huge issue with staffing and pay across public sector roles and whilst the public are aware of some (teachers, police, fire brigade etc) the low pay in justice, given the risk you manage isn't known about.
You will treat people who commit the most heinous crimes, and without your intervention would quickly reoffend victimising even more innocent people. I absolutely take my hat off to you.

Amazes me how low salaries are in the uk these days and how they’ve basically not moved for 10 years. So many countries have pulled ahead in wages and quality of life from the uk. It’s a tragedy.

The nurses I know work bloody hard - but earn very decent money, between their base salaries and extras, like London weighting, shift allowances, plus the odd agency gig. Way over £30k.

Not all nurses live in London , and yes nurses do get shift allowance but the hours can be very unsocial , 3 out of 4 weekends, night shifts at least 12 weeks a year i was expected to work, most bank holidays, Xmas days , New year etc

Of course not all nurses live in London, but it's probably better to live outside London, because the London weighting goes nowhere near the high cost of living in London/SE.

A nurse on a typical salary of £25-30k including shift allowances in a cheap part of the country will have a decent standard of living and be considered quite well paid compared to local wages.

A nurse on £35k including London weighting and shift allowances in London will struggle to make ends meet and be considered low paid compared to average wages in the capital.

Universities will no longer be able to recruit native speakers to teach Modern Languages and they certainly won't be able to compete with overseas universities for up-and-coming researchers (=the kind of people who bring in large research grants).

I hear the woman who won the Nobel Prize was not a full professor: don't know what her pay scale in Canada is like, but here she would probably fall into May's category of low-skilled workers.

The only people we will be able to recruit from abroad will be senior management = the people who do not deal directly with students and do no research.

Thanks MrsStrowman, I've just left a local B-cat aka "hell on Earth" to work in a female estate so I'm not jumping over cockroaches to complete my meds' rounds anymore but the conditions are still poor compared to a normal working place. How people can think my salary is good enough to cut ligatures, inhale spice and attend fires goodness knows!

It's funny how many people say how well paid nursing (and teaching for that matter) is but never take up the offer to come into the profession.

Bevause i doubt people have any idea of the stress and pressure of your job Fruit , i worked in acute psychiatry for years which was stressful enough but as a pp Prison nursing is a whole different ball game.

Currently on an AMU in a northern hospital. Just asked, not one nurse above band five, some with ten years experience.

I did do a AMA on the subject because a lot of people don't realise healthcare even exists in prisons. I must say though, I do love my job and wouldn't change it. I just wish I got paid a bit more, so I could afford to mortgage a house. Average 2 bed house in my area is £260k. We earn £49k. I'm a nurse, my partner is an IT technician. It's a sad state of affairs when 2 public sector workers on ok salaries can't afford to buy a home....

lol @ Band 9 Nurses

Also lol @ Band 9 nurses. The last trust I worked in kept actively trying to reduce bandings across the board, and still got in financial trouble. Nurses got burnt out and left. A few of them went to the private sector or did agency work, but the majority of those who left went out of the profession altogether. It's bloody hard work and you are routinely verbally and physically abused.

I am being naughty and posting before reading pages 2 and 3 but it really annoys me that we emphasise Nurses salaries when the pay band salary for NHS is for so many other professions. (These often dont have evening or weekend work options which helps top up salary). Not suggesting Nurses are paid enough, at all! Just saying there are so many other MSc qualified, skilled health workers on the same salaries who we ignore.