Should nurses get a significant pay rise after Corona

[SandwhichGenerationGal]

I have been a nurse for 42 years. Now semi retired (still do the odd shift). I have never earned enough to buy my own house and have struggled financially due to low pay. I have however, loved every minute of my job even though it has taken its toll physically, socially and psychologically.
Nurses have always been undervalued by government and their pay reflects this. Government have banked on the fact that they will not strike.
Nurses are the backbone of the NHS.
We will not get through the Corona Virus without them.
Isn’t it time to recognise this fact and financially reward nurses accordingly.
Of course everybody plays an important part in the NHS and I am certainly not minimising the efforts of others but without nurses there would not be an NHS.
Operations couldn’t happen, intensive care couldn’t function, A&E couldn’t function, patients on general wards would not be bathed, dressed, fed, lifted, taken to the toilet or have their bums washed.
It’s not just general nurses of course. Other specialities including mental health nurses are also undervalued and underpaid.

I'm top of the grade 6 payscale so £37,000 approx. I am very comfortably off in the scheme of things because I bought my first house in 1983 and have had an NHS pension for 30 odd years.
I never wanted to progress to a 7 scale because I have zero interest in management and like to stay patient facing.
I feel I work no harder than the HPC who tajkes home £800 a month and stuggles with high rents and kids. I just do a different more technical job which I have been adequately trained for. HPC's are doing the nursing job I did when I first qualified years ago, exactly the same. They have really upped their game.
They don't get paid enough for it,

To be fair they do know that as part of their role, they will at some point have to nurse people with infectious diseases and all the risk that entails.

They are absolutely undervalued in society

Really? I don't think that at all. I think most people are really appreciative of them, and the whole 'angels' thing is still around.

I think it's very wrong for them to have to pay for their training though. My daughter was lucky and was one of the last bunch to have a bursary. Nurses simply don't have the salary to pay back that sort of loan - ad when they are actually working on the wards for a large proportion of their training, I think they should get some kind of financial help for that.

@DivGirl

Thank you, that's helpful. For a grad job it's not much is it? But then a lot of grads don't get what lots of people think they start on.

I don't know. Loads of people earn a lot less than £30k even with degrees and additional training.

I think it's all been a bit skewed by tax credits and non universal child benefit in terms of what someone gets sometimes.

Nurses get a lot of recognition

Right now my friend is teaching full time in a prison down south - prisons are not only dangerous but if it gets in there it’ll spread like mad with 2/3 to a pad

She teaches maths with 15 years experience on 25k and has to work all the way through this full time - no working from home for her

Nurses are not the only ones working their backsides off

Noeuf - £24; 547

I agree nurses deserve a pay rise but not because of Coronavirus. Many nurses are not involved with it, doing work in outpatient clinics etc. Other key workers such as supermarket workers are equally at risk as they are.

@madcatladyforever - I totally agree

Let’s be honest, it’s not going to happen. All the money the Government are laying out is going to run into millions, and it will be pay back for us all after this has all blown over. The country will be on its knees.

Unsure why you say you’ve never earned enough to own your own house etc.
I’m a nurse, single parent and earn enough to have my own house and I live in the south!
After 42 years of nursing I’d assume you must be on at £32000 a year. Yes nursing pay is shit for what we do and yes it does need to be valued more but your post is not reflective of most nurses I know. We are skint but your situation seems at odds with most nurses I know especially those that have had 42 years of nursing!!

No... I don’t agree.

To be fair they do know that as part of their role, they will at some point have to nurse people with infectious diseases and all the risk that entails.
^^Not infectious diseases with such contagion and with inadequate PPE, they don't!

Health and Emergency services need hazard pay.

Yes I’m theory, but we will have to pay for the unprecedented bailout for years to come with high taxes (most likely on the corporates who have been helped so much).

The best we can hope for is that everyone will value non monetary things more, and there will be better work life balances etc

And may I add, all our education staff who are now redeployed to look after all keyworker staff children in various settings up and down the country.

Still being exposed to 'mass gatherings' of children, staff and parents without any regard for their health and wellbeing or like all other sectors, any testing.

All education staff are effectively providing a babysitting service so said medical staff, delivery drivers carers etc etc can work and are pulling together and doing their bit, and being advised to use 'inventive' arrangements for their own childcare during this time, but if they have no other 'safe option', can bring their children along to join the mass breeding ground.

There are lots of services along with nurses that are long overdue pay increase. I am by no way deducing the issue that the nursing profession is underpaid, just pointing out that others are too.

Junior doctors, nurses and health care assistants are financially undervalued.

Yes

Did you not understand the pay structure when you trained to become a nurse and again when you entered the profession? I chose my job fully aware of the requirements and the pay structure. Sorry if you didn’t realise in your profession.

And also - nurses are doing a great job, but it is quite literally your job. Are teachers going to get a pay rise for teaching your children? Care workers going to get a pay rise? Etc. Why are nurses constantly singled out (by themselves!) - NHS cleaners, doctors, orderlies, carers etc - always overlooked. Did you take the job only to serve during the easiest of times?

It’s like someone entering the army moaning because they are being deployed. No one predicts a pandemic but being frontline during a crisis is something you surely must have understood.

There isn’t the money. My NHS trust is about 90 million pound in debt at the end of this financial year

I think an extra one off payment right now for nurses should be a priority

• I am certainly not minimising the efforts of others but without nurses there would not be an NHS. Operations couldn’t happen, intensive care couldn’t function, A&E couldn’t function, patients on general wards would not be bathed, dressed, fed, lifted, taken to the toilet or have their bums washed.*

Well this is an insult to everyone else in the NHS - the doctors that make the life and death decisions (which is what is actually happening right now); the pharmacists that pick up crucial issues with medications: the the porters to take the patients to different departments; the cleaners that work unsocial hours. Every single one plays a part.

No. It should go up during the crisis. Nurses are under a huge amount of stress right now, the additional compensation should start whilst the additional pressure is being piled on, almost like it should lessen some of the worry they face personally.

Thank you sandwich I didn't know what was a 'standard' my sister in law is a nurse but moved off wards to clinic now so her t and c seem ok (no idea of her pay obv)

To be fair they do know that as part of their role, they will at some point have to nurse people with infectious diseases and all the risk that entails.

Er, no. Caring for people with during a pandemic is not what I imagined when I trained as a mental health nurse. Certainly not without masks, gloves or hand sanitizer. And I certainly didn't imagine that my Trust would be threatening to sack anyone who doesn't agree to breach public health guidelines about self isolating when your family are symptomatic.

I don't think most people have any idea what nurses (and other healthcare staff) are currently dealing with. At least I've had some training - I have OT and psychologist colleagues trying to provide direct care to the best of their abilities with no bloody training at all.

"Health and Emergency services need hazard pay."
They already get that.

Everyone in the health service is under a lot of stress right now not just nurses - you demean every one in the whole process when you single out one group.

We are one, working together facing a situation that none of us have ever faced and doing our best. No resourcing planning in the world predicted this or could have planned for this.