To think that nurses do very well financially actually

[Nurseybigbucks]

Hear me out.
I know that people are always going on about shitty nurses salary and how hard they work etc and believe me, I get that the job is often shit and getting shitter and they have to work hard, but I can't get behind them being low paid.

My DP has recently qualified as a nurse, she was lucky in that NHS paid for her degree, now that's stopped it does make a difference but this low pay nurse thing has been spouted for longer than it's been stopped.

She's just started her first job out of Uni on a salary of £30,000 for the NHS. This is above national average salary but closer to average in our area (London). She gets paid extra for night shifts and weekends or bank holidays so the total she'd earn would be around £35k in year 1.

There are not many jobs paying £35k in year one out of Uni, certainly not from courses that are so easy to access in terms of what you need to be accepted onto the courses.

And that's just for a basic (band 5) nurse. If you have something about you then you'll move up to a higher pay band within a couple of years max really and there are lots of higher paid jobs for the right personnel and LOTs of opportunity to upskill and earn more and LOTs of opportunity to work extra should you choose, with private work being particularly lucrative.

I earn around £50k in finance but expect to be the lower earner within 5 years or so.

Again, I get how hard they might work, but lots of people work hard and hard work vs pay is not a linear graph in any career.

I think that nurses are pretty well and fairly paid and they enjoy a fantastic pension if working in the NHS. So Mumsnet, AIBU?

I'm on top band 6....but have been qualified 30yrs. Department where I work there's no career progression and study leave has been cancelled , so even if I did want to progress I can't
Counting down the day until I retire ...staff morale is appalling

And apologies if I didn’t make it clear I am also degree trained in an equivalent profession! Not many people in roles above band five in our trust have got there without a degree at least, often an MA.

18995168a I think I know what job you do. I have seen many people who are not nurses skip in at band 5s and end up in Band 8 roles as that’s where they end up once they obtain a certain qualification. Which is fine as we all have different roles. There is a lot more movement with the non nursing posts I would say too so more opportunities. That is different to nurses who traditionally have to plod there way through the ranks. I remember getting excited about my promotion and then realised I got an extra £20 in my monthly pay packet but ended up with less money and more responsibility as I was no longer working unsocial hours. I did however continue to move up through the bands and I would say that I am well paid now but have a lot of responsibility to boot....

Why spread this sort if misinformation? Band 5 nurses don't get paid 30k in the NHS.

The pay nurses recieve is not proportionate to the level of training and responsibility they have.

I doubt we would have the current nursing crisis if the job was as cushy as is being suggested.

How is she planning to get from Band 5 to 8 (50k salary) in 5 years? Most nurses stay on a 5 for ages.

The salary you quote includes London weighting!

For everywhere else, it's £24, 214. Not every newly qualified nurse will be paid more for evening weekend shift.

Really annoys me when people make a controvertial point based on incorrect information.

Yes indeed, a couple on £85k will be ok even in London. A single mum in Brighton on £24k will find it much harder if at all possible.

I'm a staff nurse. Right. Everybody always gets this wrong...... Nurses are not 'underpaid' because we 'work so hard' and 'wipe bums and have to toilet people'. Yes a nurses salary is good... But nowadays registered nurses sadly do not participate much in the basics of care. If basic care is all nurses did then we'd actually be hugely overpaid compared to our much valued carers and HCAs. Nurses are 'skilled' workers and university graduates (as per today's standards) they hold a high amount of accountability and are drawing up and calculating doses of potentially fatal medications and are accountable if an error occurs. They're also making managerial decisions and are often coordinating 36 bedded wards which was once the job of a band 6 or 7. Nurses work is skilled and if you compare it to other similarly skilled professions the pay is not matched to their equals. I don't agree with the poster that says HCAs are underpaid. Technically their work is 'non skilled' however valuable and arduous, £18,000 for a non skilled employee is handsome. You won't get that working in a supermarket or office admin. Are they undervalued? Most certainly. Underpaid? No. Not when you're looking at acceptable wages for skilled/ non skilled work.

For a standard 37hr working week, £30k is pretty damn good...

It's probably not so good if you are working more hours than that though.

YANBU.

Qualified nurses, (‘qualified’ being the key word) are reasonably well paid, when you account for shift allowances, annual scale increases etc. Career progression opportunities are good for those who want it. They also get a much better deal on pensions, leave and flexibility than many equivalent workers in the private sector.

It’s the unqualified support staff that get the crap wages.

Shall I tell my colleagues who are currently being punched and kicked by teenage mental health patients (on a children’s ward, not a mental health unit, and no we don’t get extra training) that they don’t deserve their salary?

If they want to stay as a band 5 I get that but then they are choosing the low salary.

If you’d bothered reading the replies you would see that often staying as a band 5 is not a choice as their aren’t the jobs available. In many places you have to wait for someone to retire before you get a band 6 and then there’s huge competition as everyone wants it.

Plus the higher you go in nursing the less patient care you are involved in. Nurses want to stay a band 5 because they want to nurse, not become a manager.

Your partner gets London weighting, again this has been explained. Out of London the starting salary is £24k.

I can’t work out if you’re ignorant or just goady. We go to university to get our qualification, have more and more extended roles plonked on us for zero extra pay, we deal with every shitty situation imaginable, and still come in to work the next day so why should our salary not reflect that?

So to answer your question. Nurses are underpaid for their level of skill and accountability in comparison to allied health professionals who have exactly the same level of training and less clinical work with the potential for mistakes to be made e g physios (band 6 and 7) and occupational therapists (band 6 and 7). Is the actual money they take home shit? No. But is it shit for their level of training and skill? Possibly not shit but I can see where we're possibly a little underpaid considering the above.

aweedropofsancerre there’s no scope to move beyond a band seven in the role I do, which is fine! Nurses absolutely deserve their pay, saying that they’re well paid isn’t a denigration of the responsibility and knowledge needed for those roles, but I am with OP that I think a lot of people don’t realise how much nurses do actually get paid and so repeat the ‘it’s awful money’ line. I’ve heard people say they can get more for stacking shelves at Tesco, it’s simply not true.

yes but she works unsocial shifts to get that & her job has life changing risking responsibility & the intensive round of training & on the job training - &, really? Are you trying to compare any job in finance -even when you have time constraints & end of year - to that???

Unless she is super human she will not be on a Band 8 in 5 years and earning 50 K. I had 12 years experience, trained without a bursary or grant, and my leaving salary when I left the NHS was only 30,000. I was a near top Band 7 then (that was 8 years ago.). I progressed quite fast in terms of promotion. But it was still 12 years, a further masters degree, post qualification diplomas and a lot of hard work.

Not only that nurses deal with more than you can ever imagine in terms of stress and burnout. The deal with people dying, young and old, people who suffer beyond your comphrehension. They have multiple roles and work sometimes 13 hours without a break. Night shifts are hard, sometimes I would do 4 nights, finish in the morning and then have to be on a day shift starting at 7 am the next day. Sometimes I would go to work and know I wouldnt be able to sleep for 36 hours because of child care. Its also proven night shift workers have a decreased life expectancy.

Nurses have to continually update themselves and keep up with developments. Does it still seem unfair to you?

I once had to cut someone down after hanging themself in the bathroom, I once had to press a mans carotid artery after a tumour eroded it and he was bledding to death while my colleagues went to get a prefilled syringe of diamorphone so he didnt suffer, I have been assaulted more than once, needle stick injury because a doctor left a needle in a bed after a "john doe" cardiac arrest. We didnt know her HIV status at the time, so I had months of stress. These are just daily things that happened while I was a nurse. I think nurses are worth every single penny and should be on much more. Its not an easy profession.

Do you still think its too much.

And a starting salary of a bottom band 5 is 24, 214. Weekends are a bit extra so are nights (as they are in many professions where people work nights). On top of that there are 40,000 vacancies for nurses at the moment in the UK. So they are understaffed, over stretched and under resourced.

£18,000 for a non skilled employee is handsome. You won't get that working in a supermarket or office admin.

Quite a lot of NHS admin roles pay more than that. And if you work in a supermarket or office you don’t have to deal with other people’s piss, shit or vomit, show compassion and empathy or lift dead weights. That attitude stinks, particularly as HCAs are now gaining NVQs and so becoming qualified. You should be ashamed of yourself.

What do you think of occupational therapists wages and physios OP?

Absolutely OP.

You can tell how well renumerated the position is for what a nurse does, by how long the waiting list is to train, and by how hard it is to get a job once trained, because the staff retention is so great.

Oh. Wait. . .

& many nurses miss out on lunch & other breaks because of low staffing levels & are running around like headless chooks to catch up - and I agree with pp you are goady!!!

@alsohuman you miss my point. Neither nurses nor HCAs are 'underpaid' because of cleaning up bodily fluids. Cleaners working in wimpy have to do that too whilst cleaning the toilets. The point is you are poo aid reflecting your level of 'skill'. It's what you know not what you do. That's how the system works. Most senior physicians spend a lot of time doing write ups and researchm you're paying them for what their knowledge and skill level is not what they physically do. I don't make the rules you know! Get the right end of the stick

@PintOfBovril students now don't start repaying loans until they earn over £25,725 a year, which will rise to £26,575 next year (so some people may actually stop paying if they fall under the threshold).

I do think though that nursing should be one of the study programs that receives the tuition bursary; it's so counterproductive to have removed this :-(

Paid not poo aid!!!) although thsts apt given what we're discussing!)

Nurses don't get paid nearly enough for what they do!!

See nurses don't help themselves (I'm one to clarify again) when we do the whole 'I'm so overworked and underpaid. I don't have time to wee or drink water. I stay after my shift to hold a dying man's hand' that is lack of recognition and poor conditions however once again it is NOT why nurses earning our good salary are underpaid. It is a good salary. But it's under where allied health professions with the same level of skill and knowledge are

@limpbizkit, I quoted your own insulting words. Your attitude towards HCAs is appalling. Time was when nurses had to do that work too, with their superior knowledge. It seems to me you think it beneath you and sneer superciliously at those who get their hands dirty. Not a good look.

That wage includes her London weighting though that's why it's £29k inclusive) And your being highly unreasonable with your assumption that in a few years she could be much more senior. There are many more band 5s than 6/7s so even if you 'have something about you' it isn't easy to get the job you want. There's a good chance someone is already doing it. I was a senior band 6 with outer London weighting. I've been qualified 20years. When my children were born I took a job that fit around my childcare. I had no choice but to drop back to a band 5 and reduce my hours. I've worked my way back up and am a 6 again now but only half way up my pay scale and I no longer live in London. My full time wage (I'm not full time) is £32k

I think you're looking to rile people up. My husband earns double what I do. His job is software based and very flexible around our family life. He doesn't have any management responsibility. I on the other hand am a team leader, I'm responsible for rotas, making sure we have staff, supporting those staff, training them, ensuring they are paid. That's not to mention, the stress of dealing with sick people and family's or (given the area I work in) traumatic experiences and deaths, plus the responsibility that goes with decision making when that decision could impact someone's life (like drug administration etc). If you compare my level of responsibility with that of my friends in private sector jobs then no, we're not paid well at all!