To be outraged that prison officers get a 4k bonus for Covid overtime, while NHS staff have got nothing?

[PPEcompensatoryeyeliner]

www.lowdownnhs.info/news/covid-19-bonuses-for-prison-staff-what-about-care-workers/

I waa talking to a friend who works in a prison yesterday. They are receiving 4k bonuses for commiting to 9hrs a week overtime for 12 weeks. They are on the same pay scale as nurses.

I don't resent them bonuses, they a do hard and difficult job. But I know so many nurses who routinely do unpaid overtime to make sure things keep running and patients get care, and it's been repeatedly estimated that between 40-50% of nurses do 5hrs unpaid each week. I personally as a ward manager usually work at least an extra hour a day and have done for years, if I don't something is missed.

I think the government knew that NHS and care staff would work for free because we're needed to, and counted on this.

@saraclara Unless it's a serious riot, it's not made public due to unrest it causes in other jails.

@Icedteaplease They haven't been given a payrise or a 4k bonus. They were given an incentive payment of £500 - £1750 to commit to a certain amount of overtime over a certain number of weeks if it was needed to cover sickness/short staffing.

And having worked in prisons, you couldn't pay me enough to do an extra 9 hrs a week every week for 3 mths.

Aren't prisons in the U.K. run privately?

Discounts I have found are better online than through the nhs (that also my friends working in care get) apart from Nando’s

No not on EE

So Eric do you think a bonus of a few thousand would be supported for nhs staff that dealt directly with covid patients?

Prison officer's clearly work very hard in some awful situations. They do deserve pay if they have worked this overtime, I don't begrudge it at all.

However you cannot compare NHS staff (mainly nurses as always!) to PO, they do not get paid as well as nurses, they do not need a degree, they not do they need to pay a yearly professional fee to prove they are up to date with education.

However most nurses have worked very hard, I have not been paid any extra for working extra hours or swapping my shift at the last minute. In my trust all bank and agency has been cancelled as we have clinics etc that are closed so we use those staff. The problem with these staff is they are often not qualified to work in the acute areas so leaving me with more work to do and often missing my breaks.

I am not trained to work in a pandemic, at the beginning I was exposed to suspected cases of covid without PPE as that was the guidelines then. I have an immune suppressed DH at home so I was in a constant state of fear of passing on the virus.
A lot of my colleagues are off with stress or are high risk so the bulk of the work falls to fewer staff. We have had little support from management.

I have been abused by relative's regarding the visiting and I have been the only person to sit with dying patients who were not allowed visitors. I did not train for this, my skin is sore and ruined due to the facemasks. I do lots of admin also on my days off due to acuity on my ward.
The patient's we are now seeing are so unwell as have put off going to A&E/GP. Yes I am glad I have a job but it's not really that simple.

No I am not as qualified as a doctor in terms of degree however, on many occasions I have saved a patient from inexperienced doctors.
Many doctors ask my opinion on patients and I am competent in many areas that were previously only the remit of doctors.

Comparison is not really possible,I hope the PO get what they deserve.

A big problem in nursing is that it's mainly female dominated and so is still viewed as a vocation not the professional career it is.
Can we just appreciate all of the frontline staff who have continued to work through this pandemic, if anyone thought these people would be treated fairly by a conservative government then I give up.

The police had very little to do. The same police who had leave cancelled and were working flat out? Certainly in some force areas anyway....maybe not yours My0My.....less visible presence doesn't always mean no work!!

Doesn’t every salaried employee in every sector end up doing “unpaid overtime”? I don’t think I’ve ever worked in a role where I’ve worked my 7.5 hours to the minute.

Absolutely. No one in my profession is ever paid ‘overtime’, despite some ridiculous hours.

@Chocito

117 UK prisons. 13 private ones.

I work as a nurse and our hospital never pays for overtime and get told if we leave late it’s our own fault and we need to improve our time management.

@EnthusiasmIsDisturbed

Again, it's not a bonus. But do I think the public would have supported an incentive payment for staff NHS working a certain amount of OT on covid wards? Which is what we're actually talking about here.

Yep. I have no doubt the public would support that.

I know it’s not a bonus it wouldn’t be for nhs staff it would be a pay rise but certainly sold as a bonus sounds much better like a real reward

Really ? When so many moan about how unfair when they get this and that discount and they are only doing their job

If people feel left out many many moan regardless of the situation

You get paid overtime for overtime. So I don’t know why they are getting a bonus? I’m slightly confused by this culture that people who did their jobs - the jobs they chose and trained for - think that they are entitled to a bonus for doing those jobs? Surely getting paid for the job you chose to do is what you signed up for? Why is everybody now demanding bonuses for doing what they are paid to do?

@sauvignonblancplz

And I don’t think a nurses job is more difficult than a drs, that’s none sense.

How odd that a doctor thinks it is, then. But presumably they don’t know what they’re talking about.

@EnthusiasmIsDisturbed

This scheme for POs came in at the height of the CV crisis at a time when the clapping for NHS came, the NHS shopping hours came in, hospitals were deluged with gifts of Easter Eggs, food, takeaways etc.

The NHS worship was at its height (and was never going to last) and I don't doubt for a second that it would have had 100% support from the public if staff coming into contact with CV were given incentive payments to commit to OT. 9 hours a week for 12 weeks to qualify for the extra payment. Its a hell of a lot of OT and a massive commitment.

No one signed up work during a pandemic of a highly infectious virus with limited resources that might be staff/equipment/PPE or just knowledge on how to deal with the situation and that is what many many people were dealing with

Many have gone above and beyond that should be recognized and many have done hours of overtime unpaid. But the government isn’t going to say we shall pay all the over time are they? they will say we shall give all these wonderful hard workers a bonus

@RedOasis

You get paid overtime for overtime. So I don’t know why they are getting a bonus? I’m slightly confused by this culture that people who did their jobs - the jobs they chose and trained for - think that they are entitled to a bonus for doing those jobs? Surely getting paid for the job you chose to do is what you signed up for? Why is everybody now demanding bonuses for doing what they are paid to do?

This is a commitment they're being paid for. To commit to nine hours a week extra for 14 weeks is very differing from doing an extra day here and there by choice. These are poorly paid people committing to doing a six day week for three months. A bonus (less than half what the OP says it is) to encourage people to fill an urgent need sounds both fair and necessary at the moment.

A lot of the prison services are privatised now. So their payments come from private companies - G4S, Mitie etc.

Nurses are on the public payroll.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's an absolute fucking disgrace and the Tories have properly shafted NHS staff. Even though they saved that cunts life.

But the salaries aren't likely to be paid from the same pot.

@Redoasis

Because they 'didn't think they were entitled to a bonus'. They were offered a bonus if they made the huge commitment of more than an extra days work a week for 4-12 weeks to cover staff sickness during a pandemic.

Because like every other public service in the UK staff would be required to shield, isolate, be ill with CV etc but unlike the NHS, they couldn't draft in a load of nearly qualified nurses, redeploy AHS, use bank/agency staff if you need to etc.

There's a finite number of POs available. There was a nationwide staff shortage anyway. Add in a pandemic and we're talking extremely dangerous prisons that need staffing.

It was an incentive payment to commit to a hell of a lot of OT. If you didn't do the OT you wouldn't get it.

Most prisons are still government run, not privatised.

@LockdownLump

Only 13 out of 117 prisons are private. This incentive payment was approved by the treasury.

But surely if you’re a nurse / dr/gp etc the thought must have crossed your mind that at some point during your work you would
Come into contact with serious infectious diseases? Not having PPE is another matter entirely. And I would never suggest that this hasn’t been a terrible trying sad stressful anxious terrifying time for those on the front line. But to be trained for and then having to deal with these diseases is kind of the point of nurses and doctors, no? They help sick people? That’s what they do? You can’t seriously be suggesting that nurses and dr and any other health care worker isn’t getting paid their overtime? If they are being asked to commit to extensive ot over a prolonged period of time I don’t disagree that this is the governments ‘incentive’ to ask them to sign up for that. But they don’t HAVE to sign up for it. That’s a choice surely? But they are being paid for the work they have done.

Surely you are making it worse by doing it yourself? If you all stopped working unpaid overtime they’d be forced to either start paying or cut services in line with spending.

I’m a doctor. I was well paid for my extra shift on covid wards, danger money as I like to call it! I’m not complaining. I don’t think I need a bonus as I was paid for the extra shifts and at the time felt duty bound to do them.

But I agree nhs runs on people doing overtime, I rarely leave on time each day, it’s only still going because of the staff. However in most jobs people get stuck doing overtime.

I have family that work in NHS and in the prison service. The NHS worker gets a taxi paid for to get to and from work on Christmas and Boxing Day, and gets paid ‘enhancements’ to work on these days, and any other shifts that are classed as unsociable hours (this is a regular thing as every other week the late shift is classed as unsociable) However, the prison staff are expected to work all the bank holidays, Christmas etc, and unsociable hours for their usual salary as that’s just how their shifts are. It’s nice they’re finally getting some extra recognition, they witness unspeakable things on a regular basis.

What @RedOasis said.

I think it’s a rarity that people do only their exact hours and minutes at work. Most folk do many extra hours/ work through breaks/lunch start early, leave later than their scheduled times. I don’t know ANYONE his never been held up , or had to deal with something extra at work