NHS Pay award

[Thedogscollar]

So this is what they have come back with from the insulting 1% offer by increasing it to a paltry 3%.
Workers are leaving in their droves we have a massive deficit in nursing and midwifery which is worsening daily.

I work in the South East of England, we are hugely affected with shortages in staffing, virtually every 12.5 hrs shift I do we cannot have a break due to work acuity and lack of staff. We have junior staff in tears with the pressure put upon them.
We aren't paid for our break and we are hard pushed to get it back as time owing. We cover empty shifts on the bank over and above our contracted hours as we know how hard it is for our colleagues in there.
We are all reaching breaking point some are there now and gone off sick. It is exhausting physically but more so mentally as you know before you even get to work what it's going to be like.

I have payslips going back 10 plus years and in that time my salary has barely changed and I am at the top of my band.

Our management team held an urgent meeting the other day to discuss the crisis going on within our trust with staffing and work acuity. Nothing was really dealt with just more management speak.

This government has to look after the NHS staff that have given so much and still are. Staff retention is in crisis and by offering this paltry pay rise they are doing nothing to stop this disaster becoming a momentous catastrophe resulting in even worsening patient safety levels being eroded even more.

How on earth can this government justify 30 plus billions for track n trace and HSS yet not offer a decent pay rise to NHS workers and in that I include care workers too.

Boris and co should hang their heads in shame but as per they think they are doing so well in offering us anything.

I'm sure I will have people coming on now to say they have lost jobs and taken paycuts and for that I am truly sorry but this cannot be used as an arguement for a huge group of essential workers being financially and emotionally abused by their employer which is exactly what this government are doing.

Most nurses / NHS clinical staff get overtime, training allowances, shift allowances etc on top of their salaries & are allowed to do private work on top of their NHS work. That’s why salaries are lower and of course people on this thread seem to have forgotton all this

I can categorically tell you this is BULLSHIT!

We get no training allowance, we have mandatory training which is done in work time as part of our contracted hours. I’d love to see who actually thinks we get paid for this!! We have additional training which we have to do towards our NMC revalidation. Shift allowance, is probably a couple of extra quid for nights and weekends. I don’t know what private work you think we do - we can certainly sign up to an agency (at our cost!!) but I don’t know when you think a full time nurse would have time to do any additional hours. And if we stay an hour or three hours past shift end time, we don’t get that time back, or paid for it. Please educate yourself before making statements like this!!

@jasjas1973

I'm only a student nurse, I've only experienced placements, and I plan to only work for NHS for 6 months for experience

Excllent, so just use them and then drop them

Yes thats what my DD is doing right now, any loyalty to the NHS came and went when she had to go into debt to the tune of 50k in order to qualify.
They are just another employer now and you seem keen on worker mobility lol!

You want staff to stay in the NHS? then pay off their debt in return for say 10 years in the NHS.

If they are just another employer then you will not mind if they offer a 3% payrise then, like it or leave.

Why on earth should the average person pay off NHS staff debts?

They accrue them, they pay it back. They knew what they were getting into when the starting nursing, it is not a shock that they are deemed to be under paid in pretty hard working conditions.

Oh and the comment up thread about the NHS being unfit for purpose, needing tearing down and rebuilding? If you are naive enough to believe there would be another free at point of access system put in to replace the NHS then you are I'm for a shock. If the NHS is replaced (and I believe it is being brick by brick) it will not be a system that benefits the low paid general public. It will be a system that benefits private business owners.

All this fighting and carrying on is just furthering their aims, like everything else that has got in the way (students, single parents, benefits recipients, disabled people etc etc) the way they sort it is to first get people to hate it and then go in to "sort it out". By which time the general population are screaming for blood and have no concept left of what they are losing.

Tbf they are very skilled at the approach

When Labour hosed money towards health under Blair, pay went up, but productivity didn’t - the worst of both worlds for the public

That simply isn’t true. Waiting lists for elective surgery plummeted as did waiting times for outpatient appointments. The A&E waiting room at the Trust where I worked was rarely more than half full and we consistently performed at 95-99% against the four hour target. Come 2010 and all those gains were just thrown away.

Who are you to say what I care about

Your posts have made it quite clear so I don't need to patronise. From the outset, your tone has been: i know people have it hard but I only care about NHS workers.

Listen. NHS staff have complained about their pay and conditions for decades. I'm not saying some of the complaining isn't justified but they've been on their knees and at breaking point for decades. A big pay rise won't change that. We need social change, I'll stand shoulder to shoulder with you if you'll fight for that.

Most nurses / NHS clinical staff get overtime, training allowances, shift allowances etc on top of their salaries & are allowed to do private work on top of their NHS work. That’s why salaries are lower and of course people on this thread seem to have forgotton all this

I get plenty of overtime as a nurse. No pay for it, but I do about ten extra hours a week.

No shift allowances, training budgets. That isn't a thing.

The nhs offers many things including a brilliant pension scheme, full sick pay for 6 months then half pay for another 6 months. Excellent holiday allowance

You only get 6 months on full sick pay and rising holiday entitlements if you have 5+ years of continuous NHS service on a permanent contract. If you took a career break, or did NHS contract jobs or locum work or bank shifts for over a year (as many people do, especially when they have young kids) you’re back to square 1 which is something like:

Year 1 of service: 1 month full sick pay 1 month half sick pay
Year 2: 2 months full sick pay 1 month half pay
Year 3: 3 full 3 half etc.

It doesn’t matter if you had 20 years of continuous service before; take time out and it’s meaningless.

In reality someone who took 6 months sick leave is likely to trigger sickness absence measures, unless they have a watertight reason (eg they had cancer) or are protected by the disability/equality acts. Even then they can be dismissed on ‘capability’ grounds if their illness is long term or requires adaptations their role has no scope for.

This is an interesting thread, my impression is for those posters who have family and friends working in front line NHS and have listened and talked about the many challenges the NHS have had for many years are all in support of the 3% pay rise, and those who are basing their opinion on anecdotal evidence are saying they don't deserve it.

Productivity deteriorating after 1997 can often be explained by simple analysis. The classic example in education is that if a teacher had a class of 40 then had a class of 30 because class sizes were limited then by the headline measure, productivity dropped significantly because it's easier to measure inputs than outcomes. Much of the political headlines about productivity between 1997 and 2010 in health and education didn't bear much scrutiny because outcomes are harder to measure.

Most nurses / NHS clinical staff get overtime, training allowances, shift allowances etc on top of their salaries & are allowed to do private work on top of their NHS work. That’s why salaries are lower and of course people on this thread seem to have forgotton all this

No training allowance, no overtime, yes you get more pay for a night shift or weekend.

And as for private work? Not sure that’s a fair thing to say. Firstly if you’re in a town in the Midlands there’s no private hospitals. But even if you are close to a private hospital that’s like saying someone working in the private sector can work doing some temping, evening bar work, weekend shop work so let’s pay them less for the day job. 🤷‍♀️ Bonkers.

Snippy I would read it differently. I don't know anyone working for the NHS who supports the 3% rise, there is a widespread feeling that it is totally inadequate, just another pay cut in real terms.

I am in no doubt that there will be strike action over this issue - striking is the only way the NHS has ever had an above inflation rise in my career.

@Stompythedinosaur - A very dangerous approach, they will lose any good will they have accrued.

Striking over a 3% payrise when many people have lost jobs and businesses will not be a good move IMO

@Stompythedinosaur

Snippy I would read it differently. I don't know anyone working for the NHS who supports the 3% rise, there is a widespread feeling that it is totally inadequate, just another pay cut in real terms.

I am in no doubt that there will be strike action over this issue - striking is the only way the NHS has ever had an above inflation rise in my career.

I stand corrected, what I should have said that those who have first hand experience knowledge of the challenges faced by the NHS support a meaningful pay increase.

Most nurses / NHS clinical staff get overtime, training allowances, shift allowances etc on top of their salaries & are allowed to do private work on top of their NHS work. That’s why salaries are lower and of course people on this thread seem to have forgotton all this

I get paid overtime when I don't want to be working it, at the end of a 12 hour shift. I finish my 12 hour shifts an average of an hour late, my record is 4 hours late. If we get paid overtime (time + 50%) we don't get paid unsocial hours which can actually mean my hourly rate is lower for the enforced overtime I am working than during the shift (on Sundays).

I get approx 15 hours paid study per year this is only to cover statutory and mandatory training. This does not cover my obligation to the HCPC to maintain my standards via continuing professional development. It also does not cover any career development. I do approx 4 hours cpd a week on average. So I am giving more than 200 hours a year of my own time to improve myself as a HCP for the good of my patients and my community. Many of my colleagues will be doing far more hours of study than that (I have a toddler so am limited on time).

We get shift allowance because night shifts are proven to cause increased morbidity across a range of diseases, and working weekends negatively impacts relationships and our families. I have colleagues who have retired at 65 having worked rotating shift patterns for over 40 years. I also have many colleagues who have died before reaching retirement or dropped dead shortly after.

I've no doubt strike threats will cause a loss of goodwill amongst some of the public and most of the press. That goodwill must be really valuable if the NHS workers can't afford to lost it. Do banks and shops take it instead of money?

@Zilla1 - Not really, so when the complain of not bein valued, it is irrelevant as you can't spend it in a shop.

@Ozanj
I've worked in the NHS for 17 years. Band 7 for 15 of those years. I work 1-2 hours extra EVERY single shift and have NEVER been paid overtime for those hours.

I'm not saying money is the only thing, just that is is something. Personally, I can live with not feeling valued if I've enough money to spend though I expect not everyone feels the same.

I had a lot of sympathy for the junior doctors during their dispute and I thought the government behaved badly then and the 'losing goodwill' was trotted out for them, too. The government were clever with the badging of this - the public could see junior doctors might not deserve to be paid more after all 'junior' makes it sound like they have just left medical school whereas in reality, it's most doctors who aren't fully qualified GPs or consultants. A bit like calling every politician below Minister a junior politician or every barrister below QC a junior lawyer (I know it's different)....

[quote fromdownwest]@Stompythedinosaur - A very dangerous approach, they will lose any good will they have accrued.

Striking over a 3% payrise when many people have lost jobs and businesses will not be a good move IMO[/quote]
They have my full support.

Dangerous to lose that goodwill. It made all the difference to making sure we had safe environments and PPE and no HCPs died unnecessarily.

@NotPersephone

Lots of NHS staff threaten to leave: few do. All this dummy-spitting and grumbling is really unedifying - doctors are already better paid than >95% of the population.

Sorry to tell you but they do leave and are leaving, far faster than they can be replaced. That’s why the wards are understaffed. If you get sick and go into hospital you might notice.

Are NHS staff to be held to ransom for what should be basic fundamental human rights, of a safe working environment, the right equipment to keep them safe and do their jobs, and not to die as a result of their jobs?

If they are just another employer then you will not mind if they offer a 3% payrise then, like it or leave

Why on earth should the average person pay off NHS staff debts?

They accrue them, they pay it back. They knew what they were getting into when the starting nursing, it is not a shock that they are deemed to be under paid in pretty hard working conditions

Err you were the one moaning that a pp's daughter was leaving the nhs, as soon as she had experience.

If on the other hand, you want them to stay and not earn more in the private sector with less stress, then they need a reason to remain in the NHS.

Otherwise put up with longer waits and more deaths in sectors like maternity.