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.

YANBU OP. You deserve so much more, and between the cuts to bursaries and the impact of Brexit, it's made recruiting and retaining good staff that much harder.

I work in a sister organisation that has also been at the forefront of the pandemic in a slightly different way. Over the last 18 months I have worked 13 hour days, weekends, racked up so many excess hours I've lost chunks of unpaid time because I can't take it all back, baulked at the thought of what another day is going to be like and yet it's still not as hard or traumatic as being on the frontline in the NHS.

(Our reward is a 0% pay award and being used as a sacrificial lamb for the Hancockups. But we get occasional fine words from ministers about what a great job we've done, when they remember we still just about exist, which I'm sure will pay my rising fuel costs and next year's inevitable council tax increases.)

Do you get shift allowances?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Until you've been there and done the job you have no idea.
Before the working time directive came in junior doctors would do a lot of jobs that were quickly absorbed into nursing duties, but no extra staff or pay was given to recognize this.

The work is mentally and physically exhausting. My ward is running at an all time low for staffing, the entire hospital is. I turned up at work last week and I was the only nurse on duty for a ward of 16 patients. All in all out of the 6 members of staff who should have been on duty we only had 3. When a patient fell I was told I had to explain why I couldn't keep him safe on the ward, all the staff working were busy with other patients.

People are leaving in droves, taking retirement earlier than before, having unpaid sabbaticals, ie just all out quitting because they can get nearly as much working nights in tescos.

Pay us what we're worth or more will go

I'm not clinical staff.. But I'm an Executive assistant to one of the voting members of the board and a workforce lead in my hospital Trust and I see emails from midwives and nurses daily to say they are at absolute breaking point.. It's an insult it really is.

Private sector - no pay rise for 3 years now. Cry me a fucking river

I think they should give 5-7% to lower pay grades and 1-2% to the higher ones.

And swap to 8 hour shifts so people can have a decent work life balance.

@Justcallmebebes

Private sector - no pay rise for 3 years now. Cry me a fucking river

Let’s hope you don’t get sick, eh?

@Blossomtoes

Do you get shift allowances?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You do get extra money for nights so not sure what it's so funny?

I work for the NHS Sr in a large unit.
Staff have been leaving in droves for years - nothing new there.
STaff have been at breaking point for years - again nothing new
Staff are on their knees - nothing new
Every time a break is missed do you datix it?
Every time you are short staffed to you datix it?
Every med missed - do you datix it?

@Justcallmebebes

Private sector - no pay rise for 3 years now. Cry me a fucking river

Did you have your empathy bypass on the NHS or did you go private?

@ChainJane

3% seems pretty generous to me considering many people in the private sector are getting nothing at all. The BBC report I read said the average nurse would be getting an extra thousand a month because of it.

NHS staff are in the fortunate position that their jobs are never going to be made redundant, a comfort few employees have these days.

Not only in the private sector.

The rest of the public sector is on 0 again.

I don’t begrudge a single penny going to NHS workers; they should rightly be paid much more, but it’s not a race to the bottom. Here in my arm’s length body, my pay has risen by just over 3% in the past ten years. In that time we’ve had three restructures and our staff has been reduced by a third, with people having to reapply for a smaller pool of roles each time. No jobs for life here.

And your maths is wrong - 3% might give an extra thousand a year, not a month!

What I am saying it, you need to evidence it every shift every time.
Use your Freedom to Speak up Guardian if you are missing breaks.
I personally wouldn't work on a ward for all the tea in China.
Can you look to work elsewhere?
Nurses as a body, need to work together.

I work in social care, I'm a manager for a care service (charity) that carries out work for a local authority. There is no extra funding for my staff to have a pay rise, they too have seen death and experienced long hours during the pandemic. We pay better than any other care service around here but they still regard NHS posts as being very attractive, with better pay and conditions (pension and sick pay). The onl employer I lose staff to is the NHS. I suspect the move from care to health will continue and speed up. It is already impossible to recruit nurses and very difficult to find care staff for nursing homes and other care services.
The government really needs to tie into care contracts between local authorities and providers some ring fenced part of the payment to ensure pay and conditions improve. if we do not have a properly staffed care sector we cannot continue to take the pressure off the NHS by supporting people to remain at home.
Yes, 3% doe healthcare workers is a bit of an insult but care workers will probably get nothing this year.

@ChainJane

3% seems pretty generous to me considering many people in the private sector are getting nothing at all

And that is NHS staff fault is it?

The BBC report I read said the average nurse would be getting an extra thousand a month because of it

I suggest you practice your reading skills then, because with all respect you are talking crap. But why let the true facts get in the way of having a pop at NHS staff it will be lucky to be £1000 a year,....a month oh ffs

Oh God OP, I'm completely with you but MN hates the NHS

That's a ridiculous statement. Some people like to engage in critical thinking. Some people don't like to patronise professionals - like nurses, midwives - by deifying them.

If anyone points out how tough it can be in the private sector, the come back is "it's not a race to the bottom!"

@Justcallmebebes

Private sector - no pay rise for 3 years now. Cry me a fucking river

They’re the people that keep us alive. Why are they not allowed a raise if you can’t get one? Are good things only supposed to happen when they happen to you as well?

I work in the private sector. I am working in the same role, in the same industry as I was 6 years ago and am am being paid £1500 a year less. If someone offered me a 3% payrise I'd be very happy.

It's pretty generous they are getting any pay rise. Millions in uk right now are out of work. Lucky they have jobs.

@OdetoMyFamily

While the shifts are long and hard all we are asking for is a decent wage for 12.5 hrs hard graft

How many 12.5 hr shifts do you do per week?
What is the salary range for midwives? Do you get shift allowances? How much does NHS pay into your pension?

I work 3 nights per week can be any nights different every week. This obviously covers all bank holidays and Xmas period. I am top of band 6 which is £37890 p.a. should if we get 3% increase to £39026 p.a. I pay 9.3% to my pension which will be £3629 I will pay £3543 in national insurance and £4579 in tax leaving me a take home pay of £27274 p.a. Yes we get shift allowance who would work nights and weekends for same as weekdays I don't see this wage as a kings ransom. Plenty of money for the utterly useless track n trace the and the HSS they are planning costing billions. Anyway I never ever went into it for the money but it is a graduate course now and if I was my younger self I'd be having a serious talk to myself.

If anyone points out how tough it can be in the private sector, the come back is "it's not a race to the bottom!"

Because it isn't - or shouldn't be - and because it's usually used in an attempt to shut down the NHS/public sector OP's legitimate complaint, like the "cry me a fucking river" comment above. Unless every single private sector worker can afford gold-plated private health insurance then a poorly-staffed, overworked NHS haemorrhaging staff affects all of us (and even if you do have gold-plated private healthcare, it's still the NHS you'll rely on in the event of an emergency).

@wasthataburp

It's pretty generous they are getting any pay rise. Millions in uk right now are out of work. Lucky they have jobs.

So wasthataburp, are you suggesting that NHS staff should just shut up and put up with everything? Not just the poor payrise but the long hours, the unpleasant working conditions and burnout? Because other people have it worse?

If I were a suspicious type of person then I would think that this is all part of the Government's plan to do away with the NHS. If working conditions become so appalling that the NHS is unable to keep or attract staff for long enough what better excuse to get rid of it?

@ChainJane

3% seems pretty generous to me considering many people in the private sector are getting nothing at all. The BBC report I read said the average nurse would be getting an extra thousand a month because of it.

NHS staff are in the fortunate position that their jobs are never going to be made redundant, a comfort few employees have these days.

Few employees work 12 hour shifts, sometimes putting their health at risk, and see people die, including children, regularly. There is little to no pastoral support for the staff, and it is a huge weight to bear.

@ChainJane

3% seems pretty generous to me considering many people in the private sector are getting nothing at all. The BBC report I read said the average nurse would be getting an extra thousand a month because of it.

NHS staff are in the fortunate position that their jobs are never going to be made redundant, a comfort few employees have these days.

If a 3% pay rise gives a nurse an extra £1,000 a month, that's £12k a year.

That would make a nurse's salary £400,000 pa. I think the BBC must have got that wrong.

Did someone actually just say that the average nurse will get an extra £1000 a month from this?! What the fuck are you on. It will be like £60 tops. I'm speechless! £1000 a month!!!!!!!! WTAF.

Anyway it is a pay cut given the 3.7% inflation rate this year