To think that if NHS staff get a 1% pay rise that is nothing but an insult?

[Bluetoybox]

Given the joke of a pay rise given over the last 3 years, well below inflation in real terms anyway but where the Government also out and out lied by failing to mention that you'd drop an increment step to get your pay rise and now this after all the NHS have done in the last year!!! A decade capped at 1% before the 3 year review and now they want to send us right back to 1%
Absolutely disgusted!

I think they’ll be strike action, nurses won’t care about perception anymore when it’s clear how little they are valued.

Re some nurses being quieter - all were redeployed in the trust I work.
I won’t go into the horrors they faced - but it was v difficult.

And to add, the cost of recruitment of new NHS staff and teaching staff is about tenfold of the cost of pay rises in the sector, even significant ones.

Why the government doesn’t spend money on RETENTION rather than recruitment is bizarre to me. It costs far less to retain a public sector worker than recruit a new one. They need to up conditions and pay to stop people from leaving the professions. I assume they know this so can only conclude it’s for political or symbolic reasons.

@ohfourfoxache

I have worked for the NHS all my life. But I’m office based and haven’t set foot in a hospital for years.

All through the pandemic I’ve been working from home (many unpaid hours in addition!) trying to maintain “business as usual”

I don’t really feel that anything I’ve done warrants a specific pay rise

However, every single person who has been at the front line through this - every nurse, HCA, doctor, domestic, Porter, pharmacy technician, administrator, EVERYONE; all those who has had to cope with huge numbers of sick and dying patients, with limited PPE, long hours, staff shortages and exhaustion, deserve a large pay rise in recognition of their dedication. If it hadn’t been for the NHS the entire country would have been in a far worse state than we find ourselves now. It’s the single biggest debt of gratitude since the troops were thanked in 1945, and they deserve more than a couple of minutes of clapping over 10 weeks.

I agree with this post. I'd like to see those frontline workers rewarded for the risks that they took. I can remember thinking at the time how useless the Thursday evening clapping was, it turned into a hideous farce of having dancing and singing forced on us to 'help the NHS'. Putting hands into pockets and providing safer conditions for the staff should have been our prime concern. I would be happy to pay more tax, but suspect that there are many who wouldn't be.

Why the government doesn’t spend money on RETENTION rather than recruitment is bizarre to me

Its not to me, its about disinvestment and privatisation of services.

Give the illusion of wanting a well funded health system but do the opposite & the gullible public will swallow it.

Those pigs in troths at Westminster will get their cut though bastards.

Yup because every single NHS Employee has been up to their eyeballs in covid patients fit a year. Heroes, every last one of them. even the ones who have had bigger all to do with covid. Cii look so for them, applaud their calls for a 12.5% pay rise.

Nobody will be getting any pay rises for the foreseeable.

It's a disgrace ....I admire all the HCP (and other staff working in hospitals etc) who have kept us a float during this time ...it's awful you all deserve sonmuch more ...I would understand the 1% if you were already paid fairly in the first place (i.e. at inflation rises in the past) but you all ready are far underpaid ....the government have shot themselves in the foot for the future ...if daughters when they grow up want to become medical professionals I will of course support them and be proud but will get them to seriously consider their future earning potential if that's the career they choose ...a lot of the future generation will be put of from health careers if this is how the government treat HCP

Nobody is going to get “normal” pay rises in the next 3-5 years. Most people will get pay cuts (in real terms) or pay freezes.

Teachers will get pay freezes
Police will get pay freezes
Social Workers will get pay freezes
Civil Servants will get pay freezes

In the private sector, if you manage to retain your job, it is 50/50 whether you will get a cut, via reduced pension scheme, longer hours etc

The NHS, to recognise how much it did during this crisis, will get a pay increase. Only 1%, but given the rest of the economy it is recognition of how much they are valued. I don’t see it as a slap in the face, I see it as a token gesture of the esteem they are held.

Yes, lots of money was wasted during the pandemic. People say where’s this money gone and where’s that money gone? It is ridiculous. There was a scatter gun approach and some have paid huge dividends (vaccine) and some of the money is dead. When it is all over there should be a lessons learned exercise. But anyone, with their 20/20 hindsight asking these questions needs to ask would they be asking the same questions of the vaccine developers if it hadn’t been successful.

However there was £22 billion available to develop a track and trace program that could have been bought off the shed from google for a fraction of the price and let's not forget £650 million for eat out to help out.

So whilst nursing staff may not have been financially rewarded they did get some clapping, thank you NHS badges and half priced Nando's ( presuming of course they could squeeze in popping out to a restaurant between saving people's lives.)

I don’t think NHS staff deserve pay rises just because of the pandemic although the pandemic adds even more support to the request for one (though I think the frontline ones should get some sort of bonus).

I think they deserve (significant) pay rises because it’s long long overdue across the board. I’d still support that whether we had a pandemic or not, regardless of whether they were frontline in the pandemic or not.

I just don’t see the request for well overdue and deserved pay rises having anything to do with how hard or how little they worked in the pandemic. That’s a red herring. It’s been sorely needed for years.

So many people I have spoken to today, via work, have said how angry they are about this. Several Tory voters have said this is the final straw for them (thank goodness!)

Several Tory voters have said this is the final straw for them (thank goodness!)

It’s bizarre that it’s taken this long. The tories have never supported the nhs.

I'm not so sure on this. 1% is, after all, a LOT better than pretty much anyone else's non existent pay rise. I personally know several that have HAD to accept pay cuts as opposed to immediate threat of redundancy, with the risk still there. It's not a lot but it is more than current rate of inflation.
I have friends in NHS (admin, not front line) gloat about the % discounts they get here there and everywhere, and all the goodies being brought in as freebies, when I've also friends who simply cannot exist on 70% furlough as they barely got by on full pay - and have had to approach foodbanks for handouts.

Do we know any plans for next year's pay rise? But I do think a % is unfair, it impacts greatest on the least paid. A fixed amount per person would have been fairer, reward those at the bottom of the pay scale the most, and perhaps cost a lot less overall.

Hold on. Didn't Johnson go round on a big bus saying we could give 350 million pounds a week to the NHS if we left the EU? We're left the EU so where the money for the NHS? We're supposed to be rolling in money now.

Several Tory voters have said this is the final straw for them (thank goodness!)
Final straw, I don't believe them. Have you seen Tory polling? The country LOVE the Tories.

I didn't receive a pay rise this year

I'm happy to still be employed

@TakeTheCuntOutOfScunthorpe

A lot of people will be lucky to get anything, let alone as much as 1%. Other people will feel lucky just to have a job. Putting taxes up to fund higher rises will just put other people in more difficulty.

I think NHS staff should take a step back and realise how lucky they are - guaranteed work, and a pay rise to boot.

But this is Mumsnet, so you're not allowed to say ANYTHING negative about the Teachers or Nurses.

Brexit and the pandemic is going to mean a rough ride for many for a long time yet.

@adeleh

There is money. They could raise the money tomorrow if they wanted to through equitable taxation. They can find billions and billions to channel to their friends with no experience in the relevant areas. They’ve just spent £250 million putting articles in the Independent and the Metro to tell people that Brexit is going well. They’ve spent a further £350000 saving Patel’s hide and settling her case. If they wanted to find the money, they would.

Absolutely this.

And they could close some tax loopholes, if they had a mind to, but those tax loopholes are enjoyed by their friends and donors.

Although I do have a degree of empathy, people need to realise where we are economically.

The country has its back against the wall, and demanding a payrise 13.8 times inflation is just goady in my opinion.

It is not sour grapes to point out the job stability, pension provision, sick pay and lack of risk of employer failure afforded to those in public services.

I think people in the Public Sector, need to take a look at current climates. Job losses exceeding 200k, hours cut, pay frozen or even reduced.

They do a fantastic job, of which I am grateful, however, but they need to be mindful of how they approach this. They will alienate a lot of public empathy if they bemoan a payrise of any sort.

1.5 million people work for the NHS. Give your head a wobble if you think that each and every one of them has been fighting Covid for a year.

This whole "NHS are heroes, every last one of them" is bollocks. I'm not disputing that some nurses and doctors have worked hard, in difficult conditions. But thousands, hundreds of thousands or staff have gone through the past year never seeing a Covid patient, or having any other particular difficulty.

We need to stop seeing the NHS as this big homogenous mass which is all the same and some sort of sacred cow which cannot be criticised, ever.

@Gooo

It’s so short sighted considering they’d get back most of it anyway. It amazes me that no one realises that better wages means more spending which would be a boost for the economy. Not to mention better retention of staff and less recruitment expenses.

Here in the SE, where rents are high, a lot of nurses get Universal Credit to help cover their rent.

They'll lose 32% of that 1% in tax and NI, and 63% of the remainder in lost UC.

It'll be worth fuck all to many.

Isn’t the problem that people are assuming “NHS staff” are one group all of whom have been front facing on Covid wards, working round the clock so it seems bad. When really “NHS staff” covers a really wide range of people.

I’m happy with a 1% raise, which is more than most will get, but let’s give bonuses to those who have gone above and beyond in the last year.

While 1% sounds pitiful it's more than most I'd imagine, OH works for a large international company and got nothing.

I've just seen the RCN want 12.5% which is totally unrealistic in these times and are preparing to strike. Not saying NHS works don't deserve it but there are a lot of people who deserve it, are paid very little in comparison and probably won't get anything - care workers particularly.

No one should be getting a pay rise.

Even we railway workers have accepted we’re not getting one this year and that’s never happened. The militant RMT aren’t fighting it either. Unheard of but we’re about to enter a crisis.

@Donotfeedthebears

Where are ex NHS working when they quit? The only jobs around here are zero minimum wage - in care homes or as delivery drivers. Very little else.

An ex-nurse friend left nursing a couple of years ago to work as an assessor for ATOS, over £40k a year and no hassle.

Another does bank/agency work in care homes. She gets more working 2 night shifts a week than she did working F/T in the NHS. She could work 7 nights a week if she wanted, they're crying out for qualified nurses.