Nursing should be re-named?

[SunshinePie]

Was pondering over this recently, is calling “nursing” is a bit old fashioned? You now need a degree to be a nurse, and they often are pretty much doing junior doctor jobs. Calling it something else that recognises it’s academic demands, and also more inclusive to males wanting to work in the field…something like Healthcare Medic / Healthcare Practitioner/ Assistant Medic…. Or similar, you get the idea….

-YABU, it should be kept “nurse”, it’s traditional and has roots in “nursing an infant” ie breastfeeding (that reflects the caring nature)

-YANBU it’s old fashioned, insulting to people with degrees and esp males.

This shows that the problem is the working conditions rather than the wages.

Absolutely.

@Gwenhwyfar

No. Its not the conditions. The pay is too low for the role.

Which is why we're short staffed which makes conditions worse which is why we're short staffed.

Its a never-ending circle.

This shows that the problem is the working conditions rather than the wages.

The low pay and year on year pay cuts are not seperate to the short staffing, they are the same issue. There are not enough nurses because they are poorly paid for the role. The low rate of pay is also not seperate from the issue of poor morale in the profession - pay is a clear indicator of how your job is valued.

High levels of pay attract and keep people in jobs. Nurses are not paid enough and we have >40,000 vacancies and a rapidly retiring workforce.

Most nurses get stuck on B5 pay their entire career. B6 upwards is only paid for leadership roles and there are much fewer of those. In contrast, AHPs are rarely paid B5. Nurses are the most poorly paid professional group in hospitals and the hardest to recruit. It is bonkers. Nurses start on similar pay to teachers and police but then the gap widens considerably. They are poorly valued by society. Reflected also in this thread that was meant yo be about the job title but has descended into people rubbishing nurses.

Threads like this always attract people who want to tell nurses they aren't poorly paid and should be grateful for what they have. It doesn't change the fact that any nurse who's been in the profession for any period will know how much worse off they are than they were ten years ago. Also, if the pay is fair, why is the profession so desperately short staffed? And why are multiple hospitals opening onside food banks for their staff?

Anyway, just looking at the starting pay does not give a fair impression of the pay overall.

So, nurses are telling you that the low pay is a problem, there is a national nursing shortage which seems likely to get worse, but you are sure that the pay is fine? And retention doesn't seem in any way connected to whether nurses feel fairly renumerated for their work?

Yes, I think better pay would retain more staff. Of course it would!

I don't think many nurses make the choice to become nurses based on a realistic financial forecast. As pointed out, the starting salary isn't terrible, so it is easy to miss the fact that the pay does not go up much over time.

How would working conditions be improved without improving pay? We need more nurses. Sprucing up the staff room and posting everyone a bloody "well done" badge is not going to achieve anything.

I am a doctor, my respect for nursing colleagues is beyond all bounds.
it is an honour and achievement, it is a role with a strong academic basis and a focus on care and respect .

@lameasahorse we get extra payments for unsocial hours like nights and weekends so most of us will get paid above the base rate. Still top band 5 and essentially can never get paid much more unless we can get a band 6.

Newly qualified are fully aware of the pay. What they most likely they are unaware of is the poor management, heavy workload on certain wards and quickly leave!

Not all nurses work long hours in hospitals. Some nurse positions are just a normal level of stress.
most people work on a ward which is 13 hour shifts even a half day is 8 hours starting from 7am! Or finishing appropriately 8pm for the late shift.

unless you manage to bag a job in outpatients nursing isn't really 9-5!

It's not very different at all. Many students nurses have worked as a HCA first and then go on to train.

As a nurse the main thing is giving our meds and writing up notes but even band 4 also take a team so I don't see it as different.

Again, this may be the difference between Paediatrics Wards and Adult Wards as all our HCAs can do is clean and maybe help feed a child.

Spending 6 months working as a HCA on our ward wouldn’t provide any insight on what it’s like to work as a nurse. Obviously they’d see us running around feeling stressed but they wouldn’t get a feel for what the workload is like or how pressured we feel and what our role actually entails.

Coincidentally, when I was a third year student nurse I joined an agency to do what effectively were HCA shifts (only for earning money purposes) and I was always placed on adult wards. Working on those wards was a million miles away from working in Paeds, and doing that role for 6 months wouldn’t have reflected in any way what it would be like to be a paediatric nurse or what it would be like to work on a paediatric ward.

What did surprise me was how much of the workload was shifted on to myself and the other HCAs on shift, especially if I worked a night shift. There’d be like 2 nurses to a full ward (maybe 20+ patients) and then 3-4 HCAs.

I also felt the HCAs were not respected enough or appreciated enough seeing as they seemed to be the ones doing all the actual care of the patients.

What those ward environments were like were so far away from how the paediatric wards worked and it genuinely came as a shock to me.

It seems from this thread though that HCAs on Adult Wards are allowed to give a lot of hands on care and have higher levels of responsibility so it probably would give a good insight as to what adult nursing would involve.

I guess all we know and base our views on are our own experiences.

As a nurse, I don't think the term needs changing and it is not insulting to males. However some people who have made this statement have then called their male colleagues "male nurses" they are not male nurses they are nurses, the male is the bit I object to. when I trained they certainly seemed to be deemed better than nurses because they where "male nurses" people really really need to drop it because no other profession to we affix the term "male" or "female" before it other than nursing and midwifery and all the time we feel the need to affix male to the name keeps the profession from moving on from its female centric image in peoples minds. I have worked in male dominated areas of nursing and in one the term sister had been dropped (I believe this may be common now? No longer work in hospitals) and the one I am in now we are not call nurses at all and it really confuses the patients, they think we are admin asking them medical questions, and rightly they don't like it, once they realise we are nurses they are much happier.
Well enough from me, I am off to see my daughters the female doctor and female accountant now. I am being taken by my friend the female taxi driver.

This! Well said.
I was horrified how much wages had reduced in the NHS when I left in 2008 I was on 34000ish as a band 6 when I came back during the pandemic I was on a top 5 because my role although the same, with no changes, still autonomously working,
so not only have wages been frozen, they have also been down graded.

@sleezeandwineparty

Exactly.

No surprise that 'male' nurses are far more likely to be promoted to senior roles

@lameasahorse

Teaching is not at all comparable to nursing.

It is far better paid and has much better hours and conditions and that's before you get started on the holidays

Maybe we should reduce doctors wages to match nursing?

After all being a GP can't be that hard or that stressful. They work mon to fri 9 to 5 sat in a wee office all day.

Unlikely to see a cardiac arrest or manage a severely unwell pt

30k is a great wage. So let's pay everyone 30k.

No surprise that 'male' nurses are far more likely to be promoted to senior roles

Up until recently (maybe within the last 5 years) the male nurses wore a different uniform to the female nurses. Even though they worked at the same Band as the other nurses, the colours of their epilettes and tunic made them appear as Band 6, not Band 5.

It caused a huge blow up at one point and eventually their uniform was changed to match the same uniform as the female nurses.

On my ward there are about 25 female nurses to one male nurse and he is one of the Band 6’s (so a Charge Nurse)

On one of the paediatric wards there are about 35 staff and their one male nurse is also a Charge Nurse.

Even the titles are a bit offensive and someone make the male Band 6’s seem supperior to the female Band 6’s. Why do they get to be called Charge Nurses (as in the person in charge, it has masculine undertones) whereas female Band 6’s are called Sisters.

I also find it coincidental that the two males in senior positions are the ones who work full time because their wives are at home with the children.

There are 7 Band 6’s on my ward, one is the male and the other 6 are young, full time and without children.

In order to be Band 6 you have to work a minimum of 30 hours which many of the female staff with children don’t and so they can’t apply for senior positions.

if a Band 6 nurse comes back from maternity and doesn’t work 30 hours she is downgraded back down to a Band 5, even if she’s been working as a Band 6 for the last 5 years.

Seeing as nursing is a female dominated profession it still isn’t designed to support or empower women.

This is only my experience of course, I’m sure other hospitals and wards have different arrangements, but it seems pretty unfair to me.

Hospitals can’t increase staffing levels as no one wants to work as a nurse. 40,000 vacancies. You just don’t get it do you? A decent wage would attract and keep people- in spite of it being a difficult job with horrible hours.