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.

I think for HCPs' incomes, the best result would be privatisation and a free market in salaries and employment benefits. One of the reasons the NHS appears to perform well against comparable health systems is due to the government's monopsony buyer role. I suspect the effect of privatisation on patients, especially the poorest third would be less clear cut.

It’s not a one-off payment though - any increase is baked-in and has to be found (and increased) every year

Just like that £3bn reduction in state pension costs because the erstwhile recipients died in the last 18 months. The money is there, it’s the will to spend it that’s lacking.

I come back to - who needs who the most? We can afford a lot less politicians, who let's face it, do bugger all, than we can afford to lose health care workers and auxillaries, in the current situation. Pragmatically, we can't afford to say, well, if you don't like it walk. And we've well and truly drained dry the vocational herocism.

@DanniDuck @NotPersephone, I'd take a DC pension and market based salary though the government won't. My GPs and nurses emigrating are not choosing destinations where they're being paid less relative to the cost of living.

It's odd, MPs adhere to the 'pay peanuts and get monkeys' for themselves. My acquaintances in the City the same. They both think differently for HCPs. funny that.

The thing a lot of people don’t seem to get is that there isn’t a bottomless pit of money.

Any money for a pay rise needs to either 1. be cut from elsewhere, 2. raised in higher taxes or 3. borrowed- and our national debt is already at a record high.

The government can only afford a 3% rise as teachers are having their pay frozen (which I fully agree with).

@GreenLakes

The thing a lot of people don’t seem to get is that there isn’t a bottomless pit of money.

Any money for a pay rise needs to either 1. be cut from elsewhere, 2. raised in higher taxes or 3. borrowed- and our national debt is already at a record high.

The government can only afford a 3% rise as teachers are having their pay frozen (which I fully agree with).

We know it’s not a bottomless pit - although you might be led to think it, based on the last year’s spending - if you look upthread there are several suggestions for where the money might be found. It’s there.

@GreenLakes

The thing a lot of people don’t seem to get is that there isn’t a bottomless pit of money.

Any money for a pay rise needs to either 1. be cut from elsewhere, 2. raised in higher taxes or 3. borrowed- and our national debt is already at a record high.

The government can only afford a 3% rise as teachers are having their pay frozen (which I fully agree with).

Oh save us the old "magic money tree" argument that Theresa May kept bloody banging on about! This Government soon find the money tree when it bloody suits them!

And in economic terms, if the HCPs are adequately paid and have been for some time then why can't we recruit GPs, PNs, ANPs, even before COVID and Brexit affected migration. Why is there an increase in early retirement? COVID disruption aside, why is there increased migration of GPs, nurses and ANPs to overseas even with taking into account Brexit and COVID movement restrictions?

Anecdata but when we have several partner and salaried GP posts we cant fill, why are c40% of our current GP partners and salaried here dusting off and progressing plans for early retirement, emigration or leaving the profession?

I see the threads with people complaining about not being able to get appointments. I wonder if this will get worse or better over the next few years? What's the destination? Corporate delivery beyond current levels? If so, let's hope it improves delivery rather than just leading to money being diverted elsewhere.

Yes amazing how TnT, HS2, Trident ( thats £337 billion already) can all be funded without so much as a post on MN! but the moment we want improvements in pay for people who one day might save our lives..... its fuck off - we have no money

Yes and that tells you about those people's priorities - which is pretty sad really isn't it? But of course they are the first to whine when they can't get a GP or hospital appointment.

@MissyB1, I expect it took lots of looking before Mrs May for billions? for the Unionists. IME, the people who talk about magic money trees, bottomless pits and we can't pay what we can't afford tend to be blind to the costs of their spending decisions and don't realise a national economy is fundamentally different to a household one. It can break (Venezuela).

Those complaining about private sector pay: private sector pay on average has increased in real terms by 5% since 2010, whereas all NHS pay has failed to reach 0%. The 2018 pay review which benefitted nurses and some HCPs helped bump up starting salaries, but in effect resulted in an actual pay cut for many. This was after an eight year freeze.

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/resource/chart-of-the-week-real-terms-nhs-staff-pay-from-2010-to-2020

Even without the context of an exhausted workforce, it's not ok, and given the crisis in recruitment it won't save money. Inpatient services will pay ££££££ in agency fees that would be better spent investing in permanent staff.

Bit of agency fees context, which the NHS pays out of desperation:

Agency RN £55 an hour
Locum midfle grade doctor £100 an hour
Locum consultant £1000 daily

Agencies are making appalling profits from the taxpayer while substantive staff can't secure pay in line with inflatation. It's unsurprising we can't recruit HCPs.

@drpet49 because 7 years ago he cared and wanted to help people! Now he is stuck in a cycle of resenting going to work , being treated like shit and watching several colleagues die of covid. A 10% pay rise can justify that for him (i dont agree but just saying his thoughts) but 3% is insulting..

My friend is a nurse and she told me that she worked alone as everyone else phoned in sick recently, she did have some students with her but that’s not counted in the numbers as they obviously don’t know everything and might have been 1st years. They managed to get an agency nurse to come in and join her but she had never worked at the trust before. As well as the nurse being short staffed the HCA was alone too. Managers just hid in their office apparently. This has happened quite a few times. I feel so so bad for these workers. 12.5 hours later after the night shift the manager apparently said “have they actually swanned off and gone home after their shift knowing how short staffed we are today?” Erm yes because they’ve just done a night shift of 12.5 hours and need to probably be back tonight or have children waiting at home. That tells me everything I need to know. The managers are part if the issue.

@Amijustagrump Perhaps people have forgotten or didn't experience feeling like being thrown under a bus by being given inadequate PPE some with comedy expiry stickers, seeing colleagues die and desperately restructuring a service on the fly because, fundamentally, a bunch of decisions were made much too late.

The thing a lot of people don’t seem to get is that there isn’t a bottomless pit of money.

There was money for a 13% rise for hmrc employees and money for 8 above inflation pay rises for MPs in the last decade.

It only seems to be the NHS who has such regular pay cuts.

Working in healthcare can be exhausting. It is overly bureaucratic and beset by people who have never touched a patient but think they can introduce measures to cut the time needed for care.

My sister is a hospital social worker in Canada. She works in ICU and ob/gyn. Her shifts technically end at 4:30 but she ends up staying much later almost every day.

No one comes on shift after her, and car accidents with fatalities or grave injuries don't just happen in the morning. She just can't leave patients and family who are struggling to cope. The same goes for obstetrics.

She is not paid overtime because her extra time is not pre-approved. It can't be pre approved as it happens for heaven's sake.

Apparently another social worker has started a grievance. It is looked at as "workload" so they have to prove the need for overtime using patient counts etc.

It is just not right to take advantage of frontline hospital workers. The pandemic has pushed them to the limit.

They deserve a pay raise greater than 3%.

I say, if the private sector is so well paid and an easy ride, quit nursing and take a job with no pension, no sick pay and living day to day at risk.

And if you are self employed in your own business, or working as a subcontractor (who also face the whole IR 35 investigation), no paid annual leave; no pay rises (DH has taken home the exact same figure for 13 years) and possibly no furlough if you can’t work due to lockdown, if you are one of the unfortunates, who fall down the cracks!

To all of those wailing 'no magic money tree' please look up thread. It's estimated that 80% of the increase would go back to the government in taxes and money multiplier effect. It would be a great economic boost.

And even if it didn't a 5% rise would be about £1.5bn including pension and NI etc. I suggest we add 2% to stamp duty for second homes. That'd get you about £1.5bn and cool the housing market down.

I’m a police officer. I have averaged 60+ hour weeks over the last year. Annual leave and rest days cancelled due to staff shortages, protests, covering isolating colleagues etc. Some of those additional hours are from being required to stay on well past the end of my shift as there is no one to relieve me from whatever I’m dealing with. I can’t take leave as we are so short staffed it would breach minimum staffing levels.

I caught Covid at work. I have been assaulted four times in the last 12 months. I’ve dealt with death, a deepening mental health crisis, ever increasing domestic assaults. Not to mention all of the normal crap. I’m exhausted, as our my colleagues.

And what do we get in return? Oh yes, a pay freeze. I’m sorry OP but I’m struggling to muster up any sympathy for your 3%.

I do have every sympathy with those in the NHS, who have worked in the frontline of Covid the last 15 months; and I would give you all 12.5% and improve working conditions - but it would take a major redesign of the tax system, which I can’t see happening any time soon under the Tories!