Do you agree with the nurses strike?

[borderterrierr]

Guardian reporting that the rcn strike has resulted in a yes vote and we'll be striking before Christmas.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/05/nurses-across-uk-vote-to-strike-in-first-ever-national-action?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Patient's emergency care will be protected but it's a strike vote

The problem in and around London is that there are pockets of very poor nursing.

Can band 5's prescribe and make decisions or is that the domain of the band 6s.

The advanced practitioner nurses I have seen in A&E/Minor injuries have been superb. I bet they aren't band 5. They are mostly close to my age and a lady who helped me last summer told me she went into nursing originally as an SEN. Absolutely not via the degree route.

For someone who (from your many other posts on threads) relies an awful lot on nursing care, you never seem to stop deriding them. The pay clearly isn’t enough as there are tens of thousands of vacancies. This is a skilled profession and it’s pay should not be compared with non skilled non professional jobs.

@lolalouisa84 but as a pp has said, this is the same in any job. You describe band 5 nurses as low level. Many, many people start professional jobs and don't progress to senior or management roles. And are paid less than £32k to do so. If we could just stop pretending that nurses are appallingly paid and made realistic comparisons with just about every other job, then we could have a sensible discussion. I don't hate nurses and I don't hate the NHS but I do get tired of the emotive claptrap spoken.

For those saying nurses shouldn't get a payrise...any other profession where your roles responsibilities and skills expoentially increase have the right to ask for more money. Nurses have been doing this for my entire nursing career ( nearly 40 years) to NO effect. We worked through the unprecedented pressures of Covid and were offered 1%, an absolute insult. This was on the heels of year on year breaking down our pay eg reduction in mileage and wear and tear on cars for community staff, to the point many nurses find themselves paying to use their car for work due to the mileage allowance limitations, pity the poor rural workers in particular.

We have watched as politicians and many other professions are seen as 'vital' and deserve their pay increases. People complain that nurses are asking for better pay and conditions. So ask yourself if you don't value the nurses who will look after you or your loved ones then you dont value the care you will get when the time comes for you or yours needing that care, because nurses have had enough abuse and exploitation, because it should be a 'vocation'. Nurses arent slaves theyre intelligent professionals with lives.

I am now retired, early due to the current circumstances, I barely made it past 40 k after nearly 40 years. I was a specialist and a prescriber, I had to fight with management to get that recognised, I was doing band 7 work for years on a band 6 wage. I liken it to the investment banker who still gets a tellers wage, noone else would accept this, but then those that object to nurses striking are valuing money over lives. No Nurse should have to work in the environment they do. We have tried the nicey nicey approach for the lifetime of my career and it has got us precisely nowhere. If we dont do this now we will never do it and the nhs will undoubtedly crumble to nothing. Nurses are leaving in their droves and most have an eye to an escape to something else. The lives of patients are already at risk and people are losing their lives due to the current health crisis make no mistake, so if you value having an nhs you need to support the nurses strike.

Most professionals work more than their standard hours but do not get overtime. Teachers for example.

I wouldn’t use “but teachers do it” as a counter to nurses striking about conditions tbh. Because teaching is also facing a crisis in staffing and unions are balloting on strike action.

I fully support the nurses strike. Pay has increased below inflation for over a decade, as well as being below the average increase across the economy as a whole. It appears that during that same time the conditions have got worse too. Not acceptable imo.

@katypp are people's lives at risk if 'people in every other job take their UNPAID breaks and work to rule?

Yes, the Government will never listen otherwise. Nurses are highly responsible people with tough jobs - why do you want them exhausted and ill paid.

Likewise police, teachers, railway workers, border force, prison officers, civil service. If you pay people peanuts you get monkeys. If nothing works in the UK, that is because anyone who is any good is leaving public service and getting a job with less responsibility where they can negotiate their own damn pay rise and not be criticized for being greedy.

Out of interest, where are all the nurses who are leaving the profession going?
They must be going to other jobs, but what?

If nursing was such an attractive career choice there wouldn’t be a 40,000 nurse shortage.
I qualified over 40 years ago. Am now retired thankfully. I support a nurses strike.

£12 an hour when you are making clinical decisions that can be life or death, have the responsibility for checking and giving medications that are life or death, caring for 12+ patients on shift with no breaks, not even to use the toilet, going hours and hours without a sip of water, trying to meet the differing needs of all those patients, then having to stay an hour+ late unpaid cos the next shift hasn't arrived and you have no choice, or you have to complete paperwork, or put in a report because a patient has fallen whilst you were in another bay dealing with a possibly septic patients and couldn't get to the other bay to help, getting abused verbally and physically because you cant drop everything to give patients their 2 hourly analgesia, plus the 5000 other things to do to care for the patients you have been allocated which is double what is considered to be safe, with no senior nurses on shift so you also have to find time to update boards and flow and try to arrange cover cos staff haven't turned up or agency have cancelled or people have extended this sick leave by another week and you find out 10 mins before your due to leave, I think £12 and hour is pretty awful.

Absolutely!

Some people see it as placing patients in danger, however what people don't see is that patients are in danger every single day due to the recruitment and staffing crisis.

Private hospitals, lots are going into aesthetics, education, I know a lot who have gone non clinical non patient facing roles within the NHS. lots are leaving the profession entirely

It is a dire wage and I would imagine that the cheese paring style posts here are by people with nothing like the level of responsibility.

@lolalouisa84 this sums up my experience of what I've witnessed. It's not just about money.

@agahah That is so interesting about the professional registration and not being able to leave. It really is very different isnt it.

100% support strike action. Regardless of salary (unless you’re on something whopping and not feeling the pinch) what you’re earning in real terms is going down every year, why should we put up with that? It’s about thinking long term too. If certain sectors don’t start paying what their employees are worth the staffing crisis is going to get worse and worse then everyone loses. We’ve just finished 10 days of strike action. Do I feel guilty for the people impacted? Yes. Are we planning more industrial action if a decent pay rise is not awarded? Yes.

@lolalouisa84 that's what I mean by claptrap. Bottom of level 5 nurses will not be making clinical decisions about saving people's lives.
@MichelleScarn breaks are UNPAID in most professions. I work an eight hour day but am paid for 7.5 hours. Technically, although like most professionals, I work over my hours

The one’s going to private hospitals aren’t leaving the profession, they’re just moving jobs.
So where are the ones leaving the profession going? We’re told tens of thousands are leaving every year, so thought it might be useful to understand where they’re going to

I voted yes but I don't know what striking will look like for my role. I work in the community in child protection. Apart from not attending corporate Trust meetings and not doing 1:1's for my staff I don't know what I could not do that wouldn't have an impact on safeguarding children in my area. Even the unpaid extra hours I do are critical. If I don't record the outcome of a child protection meeting on their records it puts them at risk of harm and it puts staff at risk doing home visits.
I'm top band 7. My pay is ok but the level of responsibility I hold is huge and the implications of not keeping all the plates spinning catastrophic.
I have no intention of moving up to a band 8a role. The first increment puts me about £50 a month better off for significantly more responsibility and pressure and there isn't another increment for 5 years.
I also don't know how strike pay works, loosing pay would have a massive impact on my ability to provide for my family without falling into debt.
It's a horrible situation to be in but I don't know what else we can do to facilitate change in pay for the lower bands and conditions for all of us.

I manage a team of 40 nurses. It’s considered one of the best teams to work in. My hospital is probably one of the better ones with a good reputation. I’ve lost 15/40 staff in the last year. They have gone to: management, early retirement (reduced pension topped up with (mostly) supermarket shifts), university lecturers, pharmaceutical companies, private/non NHS nursing jobs, retraining. One had a maths degree so has left to take up a post grad apprenticeship at an investment bank.

If you think band 5 nurses arent making clinical decisions then you are absolutely mistaken. Wards are run by nurses, a patient suddenly deteriorates, the nurse caring for them is making the immediate care decisions. Dr's aren't on wards any more. We had a patient suddenly deteriorate recently at it took 45 minutes for anyone to get to us, in the 45 mins do u think nurses just sat by and let it happen or do you think they made decisions that literally resulted in that patient living?

@Katypp And just to add, the final module we study in our degree to become qualified is called "clinical judgment and decision making" Its there in black and white if you google degree modules. Newly qualified band 5 nurses are making clinical decisions on patient care.

100% support the strikes.

I suspect, like other professions, this isn’t simply about getting paid more. It’s about the chronic underfunding that is affecting patient care. However you are ONLY allowed to strike over pay and conditions which results in posters only focusing on the salary and not the wider picture.

Good luck and I hope it brings about the change you hope for.

I didn't say nurses did not make clinical decisions. I said an entry-level nurse (on £12 an hour) would not be making clinical decisions, which you implied.

£12 is TOP of the band 5 pay, not entry, that's £10 an hours, and newly qualified nurses are absolutely making clinical decisions.