To be fed up with all the NHS discount codes?

[YouDoYouHun]

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for NHS workers on the front line dealing with the pandemic, that's not what this thread is about, but AIBU to have had enough of shops and businesses offering NHS discount only? Generally, this isn't a new thing and has been around since last March, but this past week or so I have received quite a few emails from various shops/businesses (I won't name) including national and local, offering discount codes for NHS staff only. Great, they deserve it....but what about everyone else too? What about supermarket workers? Council workers? Labourers? Delivery drivers? The postal service? What about the people who have lost their jobs too? Granted, disposable income will be low to non existent so frivolous online shopping purchases will likely not be high on the priority list, but wouldn't that be more reason to offer a discount? for people struggling? How about a pandemic discount code so everyone can enjoy a treat rather than just singling out the NHS and sending the message that unless you work for the NHS you are undeserving?

The NHS also covers a huge variation of roles and I don't particularly find it fair that Mary who works behind the scenes gets the discount just because she is an NHS employee but Barry who works in a supermarket doesn't receive any discount because he doesn't work for the NHS? Not the greatest example, but you hopefully get my point.

This isn't meant to sound grabby. It's not about the discount. Shops/businesses are struggling too and don't have to offer any discount at all. My point is, if there is going to be a discount offered, why effectively invalidate other professions by sending the message that they haven't worked hard enough/suffererd enough to receive the 'prize' that is a discount code?

YABU - what are you talking about? Only NHS employees should receive discounts.

YANBU - This pandemic has affected us all in different ways and we shouldn't be made to feel any less important because we don't work for the NHS.

@YouDoYouHun I think that was aimed at me. LISTEN I never judged nobody I responded because I saw someone (can’t remember who) wrote NHS can leave their jobs. Expect fire back if your going to write things like that. YES you need to be humbled. Mind your business and you do you hun!

Having to take a phone call from a loved one and have them say “I will txt my husband can you read the message because they can’t get in to visit due to Covid and it will be the last form of communication as they will die YES YOU NEED HUMBLING... do you think anybody is here for 10% discount at B&M 🤣

Instead of worrying about some small discount the absolute F cheek OP moaning about judgment isn’t your post judging??

A friend of mine works for a very good head office (even before the pandemic) several infact and he gets very perks of the job I don’t complain about it. I’m happy for others.

Don’t go around pointing your finger OP if you don’t want others to do the same to you.

I think the discount should be bigger. I might start a petition

Petition who exactly? Do you think a 10% Tesco or Asda discount falls under the remit of the government?

God, I’m one of those NHS workers with an “office job sat with my feet up”.

Except I’ve phone triaged almost nothing except Covid cases since the pandemic started. I’ve spoke to thousands upon thousands of sick, terrified, isolated and sometimes elderly and dying people since the start of the pandemic. I was involved in the very first round of covid swabbing when we had no idea what we were dealing with or whether we were safe in the PPE we had. I’ve dealt with constant changes to practice, guidelines, referral pathways, given advice to care homes, been exposed to covid twice by colleagues, and have been the shift leader for clinicians seeing active and suspected Covid cases face to face in paltry PPE for that whole time. I’ve managed phone queues with 300+ sick people in them waiting for a call back, trying to decide who needs prioritising based on one line of text from 111. I’ve dealt with clinicians walking into our “cold” office in dirty PPE and their histrionic behaviour when they don’t like being told what to do by a nurse, and patients refusing to follow the rules for selfish reasons, Covid positive deniers insisting they want to sit in the general waiting room and not in a side room, I’ve chaperoned Covid patients for examinations, I’ve disseminated all of the constant changes to practice to our staff who are almost all bank or locums and that whole time been accountable to our senior management team who are in turn accountable to the CCG and the acute hospital trust and PHE. And I’ve had long and complicated phone calls trying to refer our most vulnerable cancer patients direct to their oncology emergency wards rather than risk sending them in via any other route where they might get the virus and die.

TBH, every time I’ve got to Morrison’s I’ve forgotten to take my ID card as I’ve wanted to get in and out so quickly. The only discount I’ve taken advantage of is 50% off Kurt Geiger to buy myself a bag with my Xmas vouchers.

You can do my job or any of the others people have listed if you like?

Maybe the reason nurses are seen as “angels” and doing a vocation in the UK is because we are so poorly paid in the NHS. The same job in Canada pays around $95,000 a year, and in the States around $75,000. I’d sooner have those salaries and forget the discounts.

@Hotpeppsau ok, fire back at the people that make the comments then, not me. Not sure who I have judged but ok. I have literally said that everyone has suffered to some extent. Not sure how that is judging. Would you prefer me to say no one has suffered? Everyone has been loving life? Not entirely sure what you are wanting me to say. Please let me know.

@QueenOfPain

Thank you for what you have done and are doing.

I think you are bloody marvellous 🌹 and I say that as someone who works in social care

@YouDoYouHun if you feel that professions are being forgotten then by all means organise and set up a way to easily identify those people and collaborate with large retailers to advertise and provide the same/equivalent on a large scale. Part of why large organisations have these discounts is due to their staff being easily identifiable and easily advertised to. There’s nothing stopping you but time and organisation.

There are countless volunteers and people helping their community quietly who undoubtedly deserve recognition and the odd perk. There are people who would’ve really struggled without their help and they don’t even receive a salary or expenses. How do you go about identifying or verifying who those people are?

NHS discounts have been around for a long time. It’s not a new thing. I’ve worked for the NHS for over 10 years and it’s always been offered but most places weren’t shouting about it until now. As NHS staff you knew how to find out where you could get discount.
Most companies are not doing it to try and put NHS staff on a pedestal, they are simply doing it as a PR exercise to generate business for themselves.
Thousands of people in the UK work for the NHS. By offering 10% off or free postage etc they are portraying themselves as caring which attracts people to shop with them. People that might not shop there otherwise.
10% off a £100 shop that the person wouldn’t have spent with them if the discount hadn’t been offered is still an extra £90 that the company has made that wouldn’t have been spent with them otherwise.
It’s not new discount - it’s just been rebranded as doing it because they care. Bottom line - they’re trying to attract customers.

[quote YouDoYouHun]@Hotpeppsau ok, fire back at the people that make the comments then, not me. Not sure who I have judged but ok. I have literally said that everyone has suffered to some extent. Not sure how that is judging. Would you prefer me to say no one has suffered? Everyone has been loving life? Not entirely sure what you are wanting me to say. Please let me know.[/quote]
Not all companies get the same discount that is how life works it’s like NHS complaining that they don’t get the perks of River Island head office. A friend of mine got 50% off prior to Covid... Your thinking too deep here everybody doesn’t get the same perks working for different companies.

Life is unfair!!

I think your post is very small minded. Who’s fault is it that businesses are struggling? That’s a separate issue from NHS discount.

No I will fire at you too because you started this comparing business.

Yabu. I agree that it should be extended to other frontline workers though. I think it's pretty lazy of businesses to target nhs workers only. Teachers, delivery drivers, supermarket workers etc also deserve something.

@QueenOfPain quite.
All this talk of back office jobs while in reality the vast majority of NHS administrative staff still have patient contact, have to offer reassurance and occasionally deal with very angry people. The only true back office roles are those such as finance, HR etc which are no less important to the overall running the NHS. As PP have said, the discounts are all a marketing ploy that's been around long before Covid and not based on risk or job 'worth'.

Is an NHS administrator who works in the vaccination centres frontline or not?

@Ponoka7 well she can always do her nurse training and get the discount

I have a blue light card. I'm not NHS, but do still have to go into work and deal with people who are not known for following the rules. My face to face contact is limited, but there is still significant risk.

I don't consider myself well paid. In fact with childcare, travel, etc I'd definitely be better off on benefits :-(

I use the card occasionally, but never to queue jump, I haven't worked a 12 hour shift!

I agree that front line nurses dealing with the pandemic are in a different category to the rest of us.

With the discounts though...

The morrisons discount is a particularly good one, but to be fair I get more benefit from Tesco plus, which is open to everyone.

In my experience though a lot of the offers from the big companies are just marketing gimmicks trying to sell to people scrolling through the discounts.

Particularly with places to visit the discounts are often the same or worse than the online pre-booking discount available to all. So it's often not worth using it.

Just to anger all the negative nancies more it’s not just discount codes, we also get free food!

Chocolates from grateful patients and families, over the last few months we’ve had donations of food from Tesco’s, Pizza Hut and KFC.

Last week Dominos dropped off a load of pizzas at A&E which were very gratefully received and shared out...even with the staff who sit in offices doing nothing

I'm a "key worker" have worked through the pandemic all along, and I dont mean working from home, I'm surrounded by 30+ people everyday I go to work!

My wife is a frontline nurse, working on covid wards and itu, she is working more hours now because they are short staffed, they are no longer running 1 to 1 care in itu, she has up to 3 patients at a time, her whole shift is constant stress keeping people alive, she has dealt with more death in the last 3 months than she has in 8 years of nursing, she is not sleeping at night, she says all she can hear when she closes her eyes is the sound covid patients make when they are dieing, similar to drowning! Dont you dare compare her line of work with someone working in a fucking shop

So if companys want to offer her a discount, fucking good on them

NHS discounts have been around for ages! I’ve worked in the NHS for years and always felt slightly awkward asking for a discount. Now I’m older and wiser with my own bills to pay if I can get a discount then I’ll ask. Same as anyone else who likes to haggle or barter or ‘this has got a mark on it can I get a couple of quid off!?’ Take a look at the military...my husband gets discount just for wearing his bloody uniform for gods sake! Just let the NHS have their day for a while, yeah? It was the same when my husband went to Afghan/Iraq...the military were heroes for a while until they started bashing them. So don’t worry, the tide will turn eventually and then this, and alllll the things NHS workers went through will be forgotten and we’ll be back to seeing nurses at food banks (I’ve seen it myself).

Fancy being jealous of a few discounts! I presume you are also jealous of below inflation pay rises too.

But, what about other people who have been on their feet all day, exhausted, struggling? Because they don't work for the NHS - to that specific organisation - they are not recognised. It causes bad feeling

Again - what about them? You can’t give a discount to everyone, so it makes sense for each business to decide if they wish to give one and who to.

It doesn’t cause bad feeling unless you’re a selfish person, in which case you need to work on yourself rather than expect discounts and freebies.

@bookriddle I'm sorry for what your wife has gone/is going through but "don't you dare compare her line of working with someone working in a fucking shop" is out of line and also offensive to shop workers. I never once did compare. I don't know your wife personally. I never directly compared her to anyone or compared others to each other. I specifically said that some have suffered more than others and that most have suffered to some extent, to varying degrees.

YABU and I’m a nurse who looks after covid patients but I DON’T work for the NHS so I miss out on many NHS discounts. I do get the Morrison’s discount but most other discounts you need to show your NHS ID to get it.
Those who are saying supermarket workers should get it will probably find that most supermarket employees get their own discount in the supermarket they work for and have done for many many years.

There are plenty of NHS jobs going if you fancy getting the discount. Why not try a health care assistant or a porter job you won’t need too much training I’m sure you’ll qualify before the pandemic ends.

@Hotpeppsau I didn't compare anyone. I can't possibly do that anyway because I do not know everyone personally. I do not know what their working day consists of/who they take care of when they clock off/what they have experienced so I do not make comments along the lines of what other have. I think you'll find that's the opposite of small minded.

And yes, companies have always offered discounts. But pushing the marketing around this time to focus solely on NHS is insensitive to some extent. Sports Direct for example offered around 60% discount to NHS staff last year. Do NHS staff deserve it? Of course! it's a great idea. But are there also others who also deserve it and would benefit? Yes.

YoudoYouhun I dont think the NHS works as Doctors /Nurses/Frontline staff all getting their jolly old discount of 10 percent off ,while the Cleaners /Admin staff /porters and so on dont "deserve" the same. .Most Doctors/ Nurses /trained medical staff, earn reasonable money .The hospital would not function without people to clean it ,type letters /arrange appointments and so on .Wages in this sector are not as generous .We know someone who works in a hospital ,and have to have weekly checks for Covid with all that entails .They are still putting themselves at risk each day just by entering th building .The small amount of 10 per cent is happily supported by me for one if they can get a coffee or two for a cheaper price FFS!

@Yolanda524 I appreciate the nature of your comment, but again another judgemental post "Why not try a health care assistant or a porter job you won’t need too much training I’m sure you’ll qualify before the pandemic ends." 1 - you do not know what my profession is and I do not need suggestions for a career move thank you. 2 - your "you won't need much training" comment is also derogatory to HCA and porters.

What a horrible, mean spirited thread.

Geez.