Treatment of nurses in the NHS is mad

[OverseasNurse]

I'm an overseas nurse and been in the UK for a year and a half now (came just before covid so seen the worst of it) I first want to say that I have respect for what the NHS does and that everyone can access care here. I have the highest respect for my fellow nurses who work tirelessly.

BUT I am shocked by how nurses are treated here! The expectations that we work unpaid overtime regularly (nearly every shift each week), absolute crap staffing ratios, understaffing and shit pay with no advancement for further training or development or skills, plus regular abuse from patients who are angry about service delays that are completely out of our control. I don't know a single nurse on my unit who isn't actively considering leaving the profession. (Compared to my home country where people are stressed by Covid but not considering leaving the work.)

I don't understand how the system can or will continue. We have been at approximately 40% staff level in the last month or so due to pingdemic, covid infections, isolation, etc and our patients have only increased but we literally can't run our service. AIBU to think it will fall apart any day now? Is this part of Tory privatisation plans to just run the NHS into the ground? Has it always been this bad for nurses in the NHS or is this all due to covid?

I left nhs (not nurse) to work in something completely different. I am lucky to have a partner who works full time too - so could take a bit of a risk. But quality of life is waaay better now - and fortunately pay is not that different (though pension is less). Do look on jobs boards - I think nurses will have transferable skills and some things may be nursing, but working in private sector (eg pharma) may be different?

I know many nurses and all bar one are still in the NHS. The one that isn't is now in private health care. None of them seem to do unwanted overtime and they seem to be able to fit shifts around family commitments. Nor do they complain about much beyond the usual annoying colleagues or patients.
However this was all pre-covid. It will be interesting to catch up with them now and see how their views have changed.

I left Nursing four years ago after 35 years, totally burnt out and suffering high anxiety on a daily basis. And I actually worked in one of the better places ( hospice ), where staffing was reasonably good. There was no attempts made to encourage me to stay or give mental health support. Most of the community palliative care Nurses I know are so overworked at the moment, absolutely on their knees.

Nursing demographics are very worrying, so many nurses approaching retirement with no one coming in to replace them.
Years ago When I trained, I remember being told 1 girl in 4 leaving school was going into nursing. There are so many other options now, with better pay and conditions, and there are no effective nursing unions to fight to improve things.

FlorenceNightshade - I do not get your answer. Nursing student attend placements just like any engineering student, physio, OT, speech therapists, medical, dental, podiatry student etc etc.

They are not unpaid shifts - students are not in the numbers but they work alongside the qualified staff. So much of what is on the courses above is practical skills which you get by being in a ward, community setting and working alongside the qualified member of staff.

Nursing should not be the only degree to get bursaries if that is your argument. Agenda for change made jobs of equal skill sets within the NHS paid on the same scale - just that certain parts now finish with more debt than others putting those that do not at a distinct disadvantage.

Senior nurses with postgraduate qualifications/masters degrees earn about half what teachers with the same level of qualifications earn

Really?

How much do they earn?

I think a big part of the problem is nurses are so reluctant to strike and take industrial action. I’ve seen frightening staffing levels and total lack of respect for our role from senior management (and the public at times) but have yet to see meaningful action taken. We’re seen as “angels” not degree trained highly skilled professionals and I don’t know how you fix that
I don't know why they won't strike. Imagine if there is some disaster on the ward your on due to short staffing and you are held partly responisble. I don't get why they won't strike and only agree to work when staff levels are at the recommended levels. If people see them as angels that's up to them, I've lived overseas and I just want skilled treatment - not an angel. It's not the 1950s FGS.

This is the reason I left hospital nursing. Its entirely different in General Practice. The long working hours and patient load is largely the same, but I cant fault the training opportunities.

@Howshouldibehave

Senior nurses with postgraduate qualifications/masters degrees earn about half what teachers with the same level of qualifications earn

Really?

How much do they earn?

I don't think they do... teachers and nurses wages are fairly comparable. And both professions are highly skilled and underappreciated by the public. And both sectors have been screwed over by the government in this pandemic and were already running on goodwill. Both are also haemorrhaging staff leaving the profession. Don't try to make this into a teachers v nurses bunfight.

Nurses are striking in Denmark and there is very little public support

I don't think they do... teachers and nurses wages are fairly comparable

Yes, that’s what I thought.

@QuarantineQueen nursing and teaching salaries aren't comparable at all, honestly, google it.

What the government normally does is go to far flung places to get nurses. I think they might be running out of countries now though.

People just keep on signing up to join the profession, though.

The government/NHS administration will only listen and take action when nursing courses can't get applicants.

[quote AwaAnBileYerHeid]@QuarantineQueen nursing and teaching salaries aren't comparable at all, honestly, google it.[/quote]
Both starting salaries are about £25k.

I have been teaching for 20+ years and have done additional masters level qualification to enable me to do my particular role in the school. I am at the top of the upper pay scale and earn £41k.

I dont know how you are coming to that conclusion unless Headteacher salaries are being conflated in to raise the average teacher salary? But that would be the equivalent of a nurse stopping actual nursing and going into senior management of a trust instead. The pay scales are pretty similar. Teachers, top of end of pay scale is around £40k, up to £45k for senior leaders, maybe £50k in London. So a senior leader teacher is paid about the same as a band 7 (ie senior leader) nurse.
Anyway, this is derailing the thread and I hate it when threads turn into nurse v teacher when they are both similarly poorly valued and burnt out professions.
OP, you aren't being unreasonable.

I’d love to be a nurse, but cannot afford to train.

Getting rid of bursaries is one of many many reasons it’s getting so bad.

@Toddlerteaplease

The quality of students at the minute is absolutely appalling. I don't know how some of them Even managed to get through the university interview. It feels like we are babysitting them At times.

Totally agree they just dont have the initiative anymore and dont like to be directed. You cant tell them anything. Gone are the days of student nurses stocking up or emptying sputum pots and hand washing bedpans😃. My niece is in her second year of paediatrics and is loving it, learning loads and I dread the day she becomes jaded. I do strongly beleive us paeds get off lightly compared to the adult wards and we are bad enough. So many babies being born to mothers with covid it unbelievable and so little space to isolate everyone.

Gone are the days of student nurses stocking up or emptying sputum pots and hand washing bedpans

Yes, god forbid student nurses would rather spend their time learning the job

It’s awful in midwifery too, by far the worst I’ve ever known it.
For ten plus years it’s been well known that a significant proportion of the midwifery workforce is coming up to retirement, instead of having a drive to recruit and train more midwives, the conservatives removed the bursary and brought in tuition fees.
The drive toward continuity of Carer is hugely unpopular with midwives who just can’t see how it will work with their family life.
Covid & pingdemic
Ever increasing workload as we expect community midwives to do more at each appointment with no additional time and find ever more reasons to induce women without increasing staffing to provide the care.
Morale amongst midwives is so low, at my trust we have lost as many midwives in the last year as we did in the previous four put together, and they aren’t just leaving our hospital, they’re leaving the midwifery profession all together. Alarms should be sounding but no one seems to be listening (except Donna Ockenden who is amazing), but if things don’t improve soon the consequence will literally be the lives of mothers and babies, and individual midwives will be made to feel like murderers when in fact they were placed in an impossible situation by the organisations they work for. It’s horrible and I don’t know how it will get better.

My experience of being a student nurse was basically being an unpaid hospital skivvy, spent most of my time sucking up to the mentor and doing the dirty jobs.

It sounds awful. This makes for very alarming reading. I take my hat off to anyone struggling within the NHS at the moment. I think so many people are trying to still do a brilliant job.

@EachandEveryone, yes I think Paediatrics does get off lightly compared to adult land. We spent most of Covid colouring and cleaning. It was boring!! We've had a few students not want to make beds etc. Err if I'm doing it, then your are too.
I wonder if people now are seeing nursing for the degree, rather than as the vocation it needs to be.

It's been really bad for a long time. It wasn't as bad as this when I trained in the 80's.
I work in private sector as I tried to go back to the NHS after working abroad in great conditions, but it was so depressing and stressful I didn't last.

[quote Toddlerteaplease]@EachandEveryone, yes I think Paediatrics does get off lightly compared to adult land. We spent most of Covid colouring and cleaning. It was boring!! We've had a few students not want to make beds etc. Err if I'm doing it, then your are too.
I wonder if people now are seeing nursing for the degree, rather than as the vocation it needs to be. [/quote]
Of course they are and thats why they arent sticking around. Im glad the apprenticeships are coming in although not in our trust yet.