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 only wish my DH could aspire to a Band 5 job. He is a peer support worker in mental health services and the maximum he can EVER get for the role is Band 3 which is pretty crap.

Rubbish. I qualified 4 years ago and started closer to 22 a year. During my degree I had to work 24 hours a week on top of placements which are full time, just to have enough to live on. I'm still not on a lot more and live month to month with only enough for rent, bill, food and occasional treats. I work extremely hard over weekends, holidays, Christmas etc and the money I take home doesn't reflect that at all. Being a manager in a shop would probably pay more, it's disgusting and one of the reasons this country has nowhere near enough nurses as we need.

On average a new nurse at band 5 will earn 23k its rubbish!! I work on a hospital ward and this week alone they where 5 trained staff and 6 untrained short one day so the remaining 4 nurses and 2 hcas had to pick up the slack they have patients that have dementia and need sitters also not there. I'm a band 2 I dont miss my breaks I'm never over worked as such and I'm earning the same as this two girls doing the work of 8.
My husband works in distribution and is a supervisor he earns 35k a year hes only worked there 5 years and had no previous experience he works hard but when you compare the two I feel more sorry for the new nurses.
Most nurses you see they come work a year in the hospital and as soon as they can get a community or department job they are off because they are broken and burnt out after that 12 months. They are massively over worked under appreciated and unsupported.

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.

HCAs are not "non skilled" just because they don't have a degree. When I was last in hospital, it was a HCA who noticed I looked unwell and checked my obs (which were abnormal- and said HCA got the nurse to call the doctor who diagnosed something potential serious). The nurse was busy doing other things, so if the HCA had been "unskilled" and just a shit-cleaner I may have become very unwell.

It's not a race to the bottom. ALL clinical NHS staff should get a pay increase. Nobody is saying that a HCA should be paid the same salary as a medical consultant or a nurse.

@alsohuman. You seriously need to read my posts properly. You're use of emotive language to spectacularly misquote me makes you sound like a goady and malicious drama queen

@alsohuman I'd suggest some counselling to address your misinterpretation of others word and intentions. I've displayed my accurate point concisely and objectively. You're being subjective, emotive and have regurgitated my posts to mean what you assume and want them to mean. You need to seriously actually READ what's being written.

Once again.... Look up 'skill'. We are all paid based on level of 'skill'. How many bloody times do I have to say these are not my god damn bastard rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t think you quite understand how career progression works in nursing. It’s all very well saying your partner will just go up the scales (earn more than you in five years? Laughable but anyway), but if she moves away from ward work which happens if you go up beyond a band 7 then her salary will drop because she won’t get any unsociable hours anymore. So no nights and weekends.

A colleague of mine is a nurse specialist who was employed as a band 6. She will never be a band 7 and be able to progress up the ladder because there is no ladder. They won’t magic up a band 7 for her, it doesn’t work like that. Even if she was to do the non-medical prescribing course, which is one of the toughest courses you can do, she wouldn’t get a band 7 on completion. So she’s not going to do it. So unless you move to a completely different field, there is no ladder. It’s not always about going up the ladder OP, there often isn’t one, and people like what they do. So many nurses are at the top of their band and are there forever because there is no level above them in the particular field they work in.

YABVU

My sister is a nurse and started on £23k. 12 years later and many training courses she now is a scrub nurse and earns £32k. She is EXHAUSTED! Her hours are horrendous, frequent night shifts and has to be on call and get to the hospital within 20 mins of her phone ringing even if its 2am! I don't know anyone else who works a 10 hour shift e.g. 7am-5pm but never finishes on time, often it's 6 or 7pm, then goes home and at 8pm is 'on call' and ALWAYS gets called in! And before you start saying those hours are illegal etc etc yeas she KNOWS they are, they all know they are. They were recently asked to strike by their union but they refused.

For most nurses it isn't a job its a 'calling' and they accept conditions, hours, abuse that most of us wouldn't dream of accepting.

Yes absolutely- you can't guarantee you will ever become a Band 6, 7 or 8. These roles are few and far between now. What used to be a typical band 7 role has now been downgraded to a band 6. I was one of the lucky ones who managed to hold on to my band 7 (because I already had my masters degree) but roles like mine are like gold dust now.

You don't seem to have much respect for your DP or her choice of career.
No appreciation of how hard she's worked to qualify or the hours she has put in and really seem to resent that she may eventually earn more than you.
This doesn't seem to be a good basis for a relationship.

Compassion and empathy are 'values and qualities' drawing up intravenous infusions is a 'skill' I never said one was more important than the other! I don't make the fricking rules '!!!!! It's factual information on how someone is deemed worthy of pay. Thankfully my last pdp I was told I was a compassionate caring nurse whom has also undertaken additional qualifications to enhance my clinical knowledge in the field I work in. You can be 'skilled' and a bloody good nurse at the basics. I can't help it if one is recognised in how your pay is scaled and one isn't. I was merely giving factual evidence to bsck up the OPs pondering

Nurses do not start on £23k, I dont know why people keep posting that. They start on £24214 plus any of hours enhancements.

limpbizkit and again, nobody is arguing that a HCA is more skilled than a nurse... the original point that you replied to was that 17k for a HCA is a shitty wage. and a 23k for a nurse is a shitty wage.
Nobody is saying that a HCA is equal to a nurse or that they should be on the same pay. Both should get pay rises in proportion to their job roles/skill level.

Bold fail.. keep forgetting HMTL doesn't work here :(

More to the point, OP, if you're in £50k in a finance career, how to expect that you'll be earning less than a nurse in 5 years?

Are you planning to take some years out or are you just not very good at your job?

I agree @ontop. The only point we disagree on is I never said nurses pay was shit.

@ontop I was trying (poorly it seems) to say that nurses are not underpaid because of the work they physically undertake because hcas physically undertake far more physical work actually in general. I was saying that the reason some consider nurses to be underpaid is their salary is less than allied health professions who have the same level of training. I didn't sat it was my personal opinion. I'm happy with my wage.

Are you planning to take some years out or are you just not very good at your job?

A few years ago loads of nurses got downbanded where I work. Everyone had to reapply for their jobs. Of course the managers didn’t.

YABU

@Alsohuman I agree with you.

Also, to the poster saying £18k is “handsome” and any other non skilled worker wouldn’t earn that much. I have friends who work in offices doing admin who have a lot less stress, don’t go home with their back in pieces, don’t get spoken to like crap (by staff!) AND they earn more.
How HCA’s are looked down upon is disgusting. If they weren’t there you’d be cleaning up the shit yourselves.

YABU and goady. Go back to counting beans and leave nurses alone.