Nurses taking Strike Action

[shmiz]

AIBU to believe the public will be supportive of Nurses taking Strike Action ?
Nurses are being asked to vote YES to strike action by the biggest nurses union RCN
www.rcn.org.uk/Get-Involved/Campaign-with-us/Fair-Pay-for-Nursing/Latest-updates

Thanks for actually taking time to consider the content of my post instead of just jumping and assuming I'm some nurse-hater - I'm waiting for a suitable apprenticeship so that I can join the ranks.

I totally get what you say, but surely it would be a good starting point for a negotiation.

Agency gets paid on top, as far as I know

so the money is there, being spent already. Could be used for pay restoration for all the HCP, to assist recruitment and retention to the permanent jobs. Improve patient care and outcomes.

but the government do not want better patient outcomes from the NHS, do they?

Why would any worker agree to work for £15 LESS than they can get elsewhere?
Do you think "goodwill" pays the mortgage?

OT and extra pay don't count toward pension contributions, well, at least they never have in any role i've done, its contracted hours only.

My own view is 7 day working has contributed to the staffing crisis, who wants to work a w/e so they can have tuesday and wed off? kids at school, partner at work, friends at work.

Do you not think these points haven’t been set out to the government? This isn’t something that has suddenly happened, a constant, ongoing decline has led us to a position where no one will fill a post so the pay on offer via agency goes up and up until someone finally takes it.

Unions have pointed this out to the government many times - they are choosing to ignore it because they don’t want a fully funded health service. They would prefer it collapses so they can say it wasn’t their fault.

NHS staff work many hours overtime for nothing on a daily basis; they work through their unpaid breaks and stay late for every shift they do. Working unsocial hours comes with the role and they take it. How much more goodwill do you expect towards the employers that refuse to pay them fairly? Why should they work for less and do it on a Sunday when they could be with their families?

Ok, thanks for your advice, that completely solves our problems. I’ll be sure to let every nurse on my ward know that if we just all work Sundays, there isn’t an issue!
I’m sure my ward manager will have no problem complying with this, as of course, she could put all 60 nurses on shift on a Sunday. Then we will all get our unsociable hours payments, hooray!
I don’t know why we haven’t thought of this before, silly nurses hey! Thanks again!

If you are on rota for overnight, weekend or bank holiday work it is normal hours so would be pensionable. We want a 24/7 service and that is part of normal hours, but pay is uplifted for any unsocial hours - the majority of lower grade nursing staff receive shift uplifts so fewer will be on the basic wage only.

Well, I currently work in the public sector for less than I'd earn in the private sector, so, well, yeah. I'm only just up to earning now what I earned in 2008/9 in the private sector, but I do a job which makes a difference. We don't have foreign holidays or the latest tech, but could probably afford those things if I went back to a more stressful private sector position. Public sector offers flexibility, much better benefits than private sector generally, and lovely colleagues who all work to make a difference rather than just chasing £££.

Funnily enough 8pm-6am, Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays are all uplifted, as are wages in high cost living areas. If more than half a shift falls in unsocial hours, the full shift is paid at the uplifted rate. Doesn't sound too bad to me.

@usernamealreadytaken do you actually work as a nurse or HCA yourself? So the nurses should get paid unsociable hours it's no bonus as such is it? Going from nights to days all in the same week and then having to do weekends too. NHS are not the greatest but even they realise something has to give.

This pattern is OK but once you have a family it's credibly hard especially if you are a single parent starring work at 7am!

Some people have kids 🙄

Ok, thanks for pointing that out. I’ll let the nurses on my ward know that we all just need to work nights and weekends! The patients can look after theirselves on weekdays, obviously.

Funnily enough, the NHS are wise to the “If more than half a shift falls in unsocial hours, the full shift is paid at the uplifted rate” rule and set our shift times accordingly. Night shifts in my trust are 19:30-0800. So if I work a Sunday night shift, I’m paid Sunday rates for the 4 and a half hours until midnight only. A night shift pays the same as a Saturday so working a Friday night also doesn’t make a difference to pay. Not that any of this is relevant, a nurse working any hours should be paid fairly for their skill and experience, but just thought I’d let you know as you seemingly have no knowledge at all about how wards are actually run and how we’re paid.

You do know that the government gives the money to the NHS and it's the NHS which decides how to spend it?

The NHS has plenty enough money to pay nurses a decent wage, but instead decides to spend it on agency staff and lining the pockets of their friends who run agencies. Perhaps your anger is directed the wrong way.

@usernamealreadytaken You clearly have no idea, believe the NHS is awash with money, nursing is a vocation, should be kept as a low paid job, bills pay themselves and that the 45k shortfall in nurses is imagined.

Oh and also think people should work weekends and bank holidays for fun.

The government gives the money to the NHS and it's the NHS which decides how to spend it. If the NHS can afford £42 to pay agency nurses to fill shifts, it can afford £42 to pay NHS nurses to fill shifts - it's really quite simple. The money is there, the will in the NHS is not; nothing to do with conspiracy theories about the government wanting to privatise the NHS - the NHS has the money already and is spending it, it's just being spent poorly.

It is you that has no idea, not me. I worked in the NHS for more than 15 years, stopping just over a year ago.

Nurses are employed under Agenda for Change - the pay scales are set by the GOVERNMENT, not the individual hospitals. The government gives NHS money to spend on the service it provides but not to pay staff - this is determined nationally so a trust can’t pay staff more even if it wanted to.

Instead money is pissed up the wall with NHS organisations trying to offer other incentives or gifts to staff that they don’t need or want. All they want is decent pay.

All you are doing with your increasing posts is showing how clueless you are to the difficulties facing the NHS. As noble as you maybe to take a lower paid job than you may get private sector, NHS staff cannot be continually expected to take a hit to their pay and working conditions. They are already receiving 20% less than 10 years ago in real terms with horrific working conditions to add to the mix. There’s only so much they will take

If the NHS can afford £42 to pay agency nurses to fill shifts, it can afford £42 to pay NHS nurses to fill shifts - it's really quite simple

It's not that simple though. Paying a nurse directly £42 costs the NHS MORE, because you have the added costs of pensions and NI etc etc.

Trusts are in increasing amounts of debt. They don’t have the money but they are borrowing it because they can’t safely have the ward open without staff - the alternative is the close. Wards are also being closed because there aren’t staff, operations cancelled, waiting lists growing.

But you keep telling yourself your own clueless theories…🤦🏻‍♀️

The money is there, the will in the NHS is not
After all the staff have done risking their lives in Covid, they still work through their unpaid lunch break, stay late at the end of every shift and continue to work. You clearly expect them to all just come and work for nothing everyday

Not necessarily because they’re paying agency fees on top of the £42/hr which can be extortionate. (Agree it is nowhere near as simple as @usernamealreadytaken thinks it is though)

However, nurses don’t want to do agency shifts and earn £42/hr, they want fair pay with safe staffing levels. They want to be able to spend their shift giving patients the care they deserve and take a break to drink water and have some food. They want to be able to go home at a predictable time.

However, nurses don’t want to do agency shifts and earn £42/hr, they want fair pay with safe staffing levels. They want to be able to spend their shift giving patients the care they deserve and take a break to drink water and have some food. They want to be able to go home at a predictable time

Which I don't think anyone would argue with. However, how are we going to then man an NHS that's requires 24/7 care? Weekends have to be able to be fully manned (even on a temp basis to get the lists down), in order to get back to a functioning service. We can't continue to have theatres and equipment unavailable at weekends, or tests not available, or discharges delayed. It's all manpower, I know, but we have to sort it out somehow.

Unless the government improve their pay offer and reconsider the funding for nurse training, we won’t have a 24/7 NHS. We simply can’t fill vacancies at the moment because no one wants to do the job - this problem extends to other healthcare professionals too.

I genuinely can’t see it being sorted, I think @walkinginsunshinekat hit the nail on the head with earlier prediction of it becoming like dentistry and increasing amounts of care paid for by the patient

You don't think the increasing amounts of debt are largely down to Labour's disastrous PFI debacle? Do you think Labour might do better next time, or are you happy to move from the frying pan in to the fire?

Millions of people worked throughout Covid, and died at similar rates to healthcare workers. Perhaps we should all get a 19% pay rise - wait and see how much more your weekly shop costs when shop workers are given a similar rise for risking their lives, and then see how much further that hard-fought for rise goes. Excessive pay rises drive inflation for everyone, and the poorest will suffer the most, probably putting more strain on healthcare services leading to nurses needing higher pay to cope with the additional workload...

Now you’re changing the topic of conversation. This is about staff wages, not about all the other ridiculous ways the government waste billions of pounds.

The NHS is nothing without its staff and that is exactly where things are heading right now

It is not a race to the bottom.

Bottom line is that the NHS is haemorrhaging staff. If this continues, they cannot continue to function - how will you get healthcare then? Solving this issue is in the public’s best interest but you keep coming up with disingenuous replies

You brought up the subject of debt, so perhaps you were the one changing the subject?

In 37 years I have never been paid a full shift uplifted for working half of it, because shifts don't work like that.
unsocial hours are 30% for nights and Saturday day or night, 60% for sunday or BH.
When we work a Saturday night we get paid 4.5 hours at time and 30% and 6.5 hours at time and 60%. Even though the bulk of the hours are on a Sunday we don't get the whole shift uplifted to Sunday rate.