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.

JaniieJones I'm an advanced clinical practitioner on top band 6 pay. You are so far removed from reality it's scary and also very offensive.

'Are you accusing e of lying?'

Sighs.

No. I am saying there are band 7, 8s and 9s that are clinical roles. Nurse consultants, specialist nurses, ANPs.

I actually posted a link with ANP roles starting at 45k.

So you don't need to stay at a 6 because anything higher is only admin work which is what you were suggesting with your band 8 manager 'never stepping foot on the ward' comment.

@toothpicklover

JaniieJones I'm an advanced clinical practitioner on top band 6 pay. You are so far removed from reality it's scary and also very offensive.

Omg obviously not everyone is on 8s. My point is the scope is there to get a higher grade doing clinical work. It isn't all into the office once you get higher than a 6.

I'll post it again incase you missed it www.jobs.nhs.uk/extsearch?&keyword=Advanced%20Nurse%20Practitioner&vacancy_region=S02

ANPs starting at 45k which is a band 8. HTH.

I would suggest a specialist nurse on a 6 is very junior specialist nurse. Nothing personal for those of you taking great offence at these facts.

I’m not a very junior specialist nurse - i have done it for 5 years. There is NO WAY I will ever be a band 7, 8 or 9 (lol) specialist nurse because my trust grades specialist nurses as band 6s. 🙄

Are you trying to post a link to a particular job? That just brings up a list of jobs for me. If you’re on about the ANP job, you’ll see that most responsibilities are equal to that of a junior doctor. Which is another thing they’re trying to do - give the responsibility of a junior doctor to a nurse who will be paid less.

@JaniieJones what do you do for work? Have you ever worked for the nhs? Have you ever been an inpatient? Just trying to understand how you can be so woefully ignorant.. unless you’re taking the piss

@JaniieJones very few and far between unless you live in london where I have heard of nurses with a year or two's experience getting a band 6. On my unit in the NW it took 9 years for a band 6 to arise. 17 staff left in the meantime....grade 6 specialist nurses often need supplementary qualifications so often only apply to people already working in that field but at a band 5. So you need to make a downward move rather than a side wards one to diversify. I looked at applying for a band 6 alcohol nurse post as I have plenty of experience caring for patients with end stage liver failure and addiction issues but you needed a specialist qualification. Very few have this so the team is still short.

Its simple if nhs workers complaining about their shift hours did only 8hr shifts for their current pay would they be happy? Since 12hr shifts seem to be an issue!

How in reality it can happen isn't the point im trying to get to.

I simply want to see if those moaning about the payrise cos they do 12hr shifts and don't think its enough would still moan if they did 8hr shifts for their current pay.....

Given the fact those moaning aren't responding I think it'll prove my point that even of their hours were standard 8hr days on their current pay they would still complain its not enough! Because then they would use the excuse that well we save lives and its more deserving of more money than x job.

Love how someone who clearly isn't a nurse and has zero knowledge of trusts and AFC bit can google thinks they know better than actual real nurses.

My trust only has specialised nurses at a band 6, used to be 7 buts it is cheaper to employ 6's. Even SCP (surgical care practitioner) in my trust are band 7, that's for a master's degree and doing things like scope's, minor operations, chasing and ordering tests..

There seems to be people on the wind up here, what you read is one thing, what we see at work is what is actually happening. I don't think the public want to know. As I said before if they paid each nurse according to skills eg ITU nurse it would cost a lot and they couldn't so easily move staff. I don't think people have the first clue what we do but are first to complain when something goes wrong. But all we need to do is work harder and find different ways to resuscitate 2 patients at once easy

Clinical band 7s are few and far between. I have one, but it took some years of completing additional therapy qualifications alongside my full-time job and there was a lot of competition.

I think when people post the full AfC payscale people imagine most nurses will reach the top levels, but in reality very, very few will, and most nurses will be a band 5 or 6 throughout their career.

'Are you trying to post a link to a particular job? That just brings up a list of jobs for me. If you’re on about the ANP job, you’ll see that most responsibilities are equal to that of a junior doctor. Which is another thing they’re trying to do - give the responsibility of a junior doctor to a nurse who will be paid less.'

No not one particular job, I'm giving examples of job vacancies that are clinically based that start at band 8s?

You suggested anything higher than a 6 would be office based as your band 8 manager 'never stepped foot on the ward'. Again, not every specialist nurse is a 7 and 8 but some are. Some clinical nurse consultants are 8s.

Band 5s and band 6s can stay ward based or they can be promoted and still say clinically based. As I've shown by my ANP vacancy list. Anyway I'm aware I'm repeating myself do reread my posts if you still don't understand.

@JaniieJones maybe you could reread my
Post and answer my questions?

@Dreamstate don't get your point. If we worked 8 hour shifts we'd just end up working more shifts a week, the volume of work wouldn't change, in fact shifts would be worse because we don't have the staff to cover 3 shifts a day. The whole idea of 12 1/2 hour shifts was to reduce staffing levels. 1 nurse rather than 3 (early, late, night shift). Again non nhs staff rocking up with no idea

DD really struggled initially with the reduction in staffing at her cafe. But she is now really enjoying the additional responsibility and fast paced environment.

Do you hear yourself??

Adapting to reduced staffing levels in a café is perhaps a tad different to coping with lack of staff on a busy hospital ward! I'm very pleased that your DD is enjoying the additional responsibility but let's be honest, if people have to wait a bit longer for their coffee and cake it's not exactly life or death is it?

Unbelievable.

@JaniieJones you could count the number of clinical nurse consultants or nurse practitioners in our hospital on one hand. Few want that degree of responsibility. It takes 2 years I think and a lot of technically hard work plus emotional resilience. General opinion was that it was a post easily abused by management.

'you could count the number of clinical nurse consultants or nurse practitioners in our hospital on one hand'

I didn't say wards are staffed by 8s and 9s. I said there is scope for clinical roles at a higher band, many more nowadays as ANPs do take on more roles which is actually a good thing, recognising the potential and ability of nurses.

@JaniieJones what do you do for work? Have you ever worked in the nhs? Have you ever been an inpatient?

@Dreamstate, I think that a lot of people would be less insulted by the proposed "pay rise" (in quotation marks as nurses are still looking at a 7% drop in pay over the next 10 years) if we had better resources, more staff and better working conditions, including shorter shifts. I've had colleagues quit NHS work to go to the private sector for just those reasons - one colleague, for example, got the same wages as in the NHS, but with shorter hours and no on-call requirements.

The reality, though, is that those things aren't easily changed in the NHS, especially when you consider the level of skill required by clinicians in order for them to practise independently enough to be safe on a ward. The government has under-invested in healthcare (and other areas too!) for years, and the result is that we are now hugely under-resourced and under-staffed, and neither of those issues can be solved with a quick fix.

In a magical world where healthcare providers grow on trees, yes, I'd be happy to stay on my current salary and actually get to see my family. Even in this world, I'd be happy to stay on my current salary if it meant my colleagues were getting paid fairly (spoiler alert - they aren't). I'm not happy to work myself into the ground, literally risking my life to help others, and have that money line the pockets of a corrupt government and its cronies while people with no understanding of what it's like to work in healthcare accuse us of griping or suggest the issue is that we aren't working hard enough.

[quote Kittyswhiskers]@JaniieJones what do you do for work? Have you ever worked in the nhs? Have you ever been an inpatient?[/quote]
I know lots of peope who work for the nhs, both ward based and senior clinical roles and family and friends have of course been inpatients. The specialist nurses and ANPs were brilliant as were the band 5 ward nurses.

For the trillionth time I'm not criticising anyone I am stating there is scope for promotion further than band 6 that is still clinically based.

The 3% pay rise is well deserved but it is enough.

So you don’t work for the nhs.. how can you possibly comment then? How can you truly understand the pressures? You cant, and you don’t want to. The thread was never about whether we could earn more if we were more ‘ambitious’ (still lol-ing at that!!) it was about whether the 3% is enough. Until you’ve walked a mile (or 10 miles a day in most cases) in the role of a hospital based clinical job, you can’t understand.

There is scope for a very small number of nurses to become specialist nurses or an advanced nurse practitioner. In our hospital there are 3. I have friends who are teachers and would not dare to presume that I knew what it was like to be a teacher on a day to day basis, let alone argue with them about
promotion prospects. But as usual with nursing everyone thinks they have insight into the job because they've been a patient or a friends sister was a nurse 5 years ago hence the posts by a lawyer married to a consultant who didn't have a clue

have friends who are teachers and would not dare to presume that I knew what it was like to be a teacher on a day to day basis, let alone argue with them about promotion prospects. But as usual with nursing everyone thinks they have insight into the job because they've been a patient or a friends sister was a nurse 5 years ago

Plenty of people do it with teachers as well. After all, everyone’s been to school, so know exactly how they’re run!

'So you don’t work for the nhs.. how can you possibly comment then? How can you truly understand the pressures? You cant, and you don’t want to'

I absolutely understand the pressures. You keep missing my point.. you said band 8s never set foot on the ward, yet again I've pointed out that is bollocks and it is possible to have a 45k salary and be clinical based. Not every ward nurse obviously but the choice isn't clinically until a 6 then management/adnmin any higher. Anyway whatever, you carry on with your factually incorrect pity party.

3% is enough.

You absolutely do not understand the pressures or you wouldn’t be saying 3% was enough. Hth.

And yes our pity party is factually incorrect, obviously you would know more than the nurses who actually do the job 🙄