I could be wrong but I don’t think even Unison is really expecting a 12.5 percent payrise in all honesty, but it’s a place to start, to encourage a reasonable payrise in the circumstances (to show quite how off-base this 1 percent plan is).
I understand the country is under financial pressure and others are losing their jobs etc. but I still do think a small but significant payrise (and not yet another real terms cut due to inflation) should have been offered. Nobody would be turning up their noses at let’s say 5 percent or so I don’t think.
This government need to understand how low morale is in the NHS, and quite how bad pay and conditions have been under austerity and Brexit let alone the pandemic. It has been relentlessly shit since the 2008 crash and NHS doctors and nurses are starting to walk away in larger numbers now since the pandemic began although it started long before that (which may of course actually be this government’s end game with this hmmmm) It’s been a real terms cut pretty much every year since then (most years it’s been a total pay freeze) which was bad enough in “normal” times but throw in a pandemic and not at least offering a rise that keeps pace with inflation in such a year is just taking advantage of clinician’s goodwill even more than usual. Especially when combined with not finding the NHS enough money to deal with the aftermath and catch up care needed once restrictions lift. So basically simultaneously making working conditions even shitter and more stressful than they had to be for ages yet after a period of intense stress, while giving a real world pay cut.
It’s not ok but I expected no less from this government so it’s no surprise. If NHS staff had had decent pay rises which kept pace with inflation over the past decade, this wouldn’t be such a sticking point. The NHS has been run on goodwill ever since I started working for it, but at least under Blair it was not resented, as we felt slightly more fairly renumerated for it, and every day was not at warzone complete crisis firefighting level the way it has been for the past decade, so we had enough resilience to be able to step up at a time of sudden higher unexpected demand without completely burning out. And on a normal day enough time and energy to genuinely be aiming to achieve clinical excellence. I remember saying to my family that by 2016, I just felt as though I was practicing medicine in a war zone all day every day, no ability to do anything but deal with the category of “worst wounded who still have a chance of not dying if dealt with now”, and leaving aside those who wouldn’t make it and those with more minor although still life altering injuries, because of the crazy workload and time pressures.
As a salaried GP, I am aware that I have been relatively protected during this pandemic compared to some other NHS staff (which doesn’t mean it has been at all easy or that I’ve been hiding behind my phone etc before anyone says it). I do think if they feel they cannot afford a significant pay rise for all NHS staff, they should absolutely have found some sort of decent bonus payment for ITU staff in particular and other people working on dedicated COVID wards or doing aerosol generating procedures. Basically anybody who qualified for a fancier mask than a crappy surgical mask during the pandemic. I actually think ITU nurses (and doctors) DO absolutely deserve a 12.5 percent pay uplift or something very close to it.
Having said all that I did see an article quoting one young nurse saying that a 1 percent pay rise was “degrading” and felt that was a bit much! A pay rise is a pay rise and better than a pay freeze or a pay cut or losing your job for sure, and people should be mindful of others circumstances. But this year they really did need to offer something better than the “usual” one percent or nothing. How they could honestly have thought that would go down well I don’t know. Which brings me back to my conspiracy theories that it’s all being done on purpose to run the NHS down even further until there will be no choice but to privatise it and give all the contracts to their chums again.