£10.60 for qualified nurse-stay or walkout

[user1471462428]

I’ve been in my new job for a couple of weeks, I had asked the company to clarify my wages when I first started but the manager was unable to. She did state the generally paid around £14 an hour (this is low for nursing but I was willing to accept it). I’ve just got my first wage slip and it’s £10.60 an hour, it feels like an insult I have to pay a registration fee to be a nurse and once that is deducted I won’t be far off the minimum wage. I have over a decade nursing experience and I will only be paid a pound more than their health care assistant. I’m wondering whether I should walk out? I haven’t been given a contract and feel I’ve been deceived.

@quizqueen

Surely everyone, especially those claiming to be experienced professionals, would make sure they have a signed contract stating salary and terms and conditions before accepting a job!

Well OP made a mistake, for sure, but it’s an easy one to make if you’re used to the public sector and then go into the private sector. I don’t think she has to do penance for her error but putting up with it.

OP to begin with you said She did state the generally paid around £14 an hour
Then later you said I was verbally offered £14 a hour by my line manager.
Which one was is? If she offered you £14, then point out the mistake. If she muttered that sometimes they pay £14, you really should have asked for clarification.

Did you get a letter offering you the job? Did that have details on?
If it's not what you were told, then ask, but if you were just guessing, it's tough luck, and you can leave if you want to, but don't leave if you have nothing to go to.

I’ve never known anyone to start a job without having a signed contract, my mind is boggling.,

I earn £9 an hour. I have no degree, barely any GCSEs and do a basic job in a factory that a monkey could do to be honest.

£10.60 an hour for a qualified nurse is shameful. A nurse is worth way more than that.

its also interesting that you have trained as a vaccinator....I thought that was a part of normal nurse training? The district nurses i used to manage didn't need extra training to vaccinate, they just did it. btw I am not a nurse but a retired Occupational Therapist and Community Team Manager.

However, it is not a career that people enter for money

Of course nurses are all angels and have a calling, they don't need money at all.

its also interesting that you have trained as a vaccinator....I thought that was a part of normal nurse training?

No if its Covid my trust have extra training you need to do.

Demand a copy of the contract. Point out the “error” and tell them you want the payment you were quoted backdated. If they refuse, quit.

Unfortunately you were a bit too trusting in starting without receiving a copy of the contract with payment terms set out in full, but you don’t have to stay there.

@LagunaBubbles

However, it is not a career that people enter for money

Of course nurses are all angels and have a calling, they don't need money at all.

Indeed ,harking back to the days of handmaidens to the Doctor's!

@DinosaurDiana

If you’re doing Covid jabs I do know of nurses being paid that on a bank basis.

That's rubbish pay, our vaccine centre pays us £23.50 an hour! They're still making a good profit.

I have stated that I assumed I would be given a contract on the day I started. The HR agency they used to hire me were chaotic so I thought when I was actually in the job they would sort it. I did have an offer letter with the post and hours but no salary which is why I queried it. She said it was around £14 an hour but there was a pay review going on. Which I’m also now assuming is untrue. Sadly I really trusted her and I have made it clear my financial situation is quite perilous as am a single parent and paying for huge amounts of childcare.

@godmum56

Actual Vaccines training is a thing, usually done by practice nurses, occy health, that kind of thing in order to be able to give the whole complement of vaccs and imms recommended for life in the UK. Throughout the lifespan, travel requirements, etc. Including catching up those without any, getting extras done before chemo/immunosuppressant therapy or making decisions about people with potential contraindications.

DN’s probably giving out doses of a single vaccine during seasonal campaigns I.e. Flu. Although I’m sure some of them probably have done vaccines training in past jobs.

Just walk. Its not worth it. Nurses around here in the private sector are paid double that.

And for poster who stated nursing homes have no progression, I've progressed through 4 different roles in 2 years and I'm being put through a level 5 course to progress even further. If you get a good company and are good at your job, there is a good chance to progress.

@godmum56 you should have extra training to be a vaccinator, especially in respect of maintaining the cold chain. I’m now worried that there are untrained vaccinators out there.

Id walk, or at least start looking in earnest for another job, your a trained professional and they hired you for such a role, that hourly rate is insulting, i earn £9.30 and hour and i work for tesco, you deserve much more

@godmum56

its also interesting that you have trained as a vaccinator....I thought that was a part of normal nurse training? The district nurses i used to manage didn't need extra training to vaccinate, they just did it. btw I am not a nurse but a retired Occupational Therapist and Community Team Manager.

Yes vaccinating is extra training on top. Mine was 2 days for the routine child and adult vaccinations, our HCAs do a course for giving flu jabs and I had to do extra online training for each of the covid vaccines. It isn't just sticking needles in arms.

Walk! Nurses are registered professionals. Know your worth.

OP, I earned £9.75 per hour when I was a retail supervisor, whilst at university. I would be bummed to have graduated just to earn the same.

You’re a nurse in private health care, you should be paid more than the NHS if not the same. You’re earning less!

@godmum56

I work in an NHS hospital, even if you can give medications intramuscularly you still have to complete a vaccine training package. It's about 12 hours worth of online learning, mostly to do specifically with the flu and covid vaccine, then you have to do at least one "shadowing shift" and be supervised giving 10 injections before being signed off as being independently competent.

This is standard for most nursing skills, intravenous drugs, taking blood and insetering cannulas, PEG feeds, tracheostomy care, male catheters etc. You have to be signed off as being competent after qualifying, and if you move trusts you usually have to do it again, nurse training doesn't actually qualify you for much!

It's as if the management are trying to gaslight you into thinking you're only worth that ☹️

Walk walk walk that's an insult for all the years you have studied for your degree and all the hard work you have put in

Know your worth op. You can find something better than this.

@LagunaBubbles

However, it is not a career that people enter for money

Of course nurses are all angels and have a calling, they don't need money at all.

The image of nurses as caring angels does us no favours. If it wasn't a 90% female dominated profession, we would be treated better. The days of being Doctors' handmaidens are long gone, I'm a qualified professional and expect to be treated and paid as one.

One huge benefit of the massive shortage of nurses means you can always get another job, OP. I'd start looking today, as even if they do agree to pay £14ph they sound like shit employers. You can do better.

@godmum56

As an example re vaccines training. Imagine you’re a practice nurse, and a traveller family books in, they have seven children from ages 3 months to 17 years. None of their children have any had any child hood vaccines, since covid they’ve decided they want to get them all protected from as many disease as possible as they’re concerned. One of the children currently has an ear infection + fever, the 18 month toddler has a cold, and the nine year old has previously had a very severe allergic reaction to an unknown allergen that required hospital treatment. Those three may or may not be suitable for vaccines on that day.

You need to be able to make a plan to get all seven of these children vaccinated in line with the UK vaccination schedules, you need to know which can be given together, who needs to be referred to hospital for theirs, what days each individual child needs to return for boosters, etc.

Of course vaccines training is a thing.