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

Yes I do as my daughter is a nurse. It is not about them being 'greedy'. Quite often the wards are not sufficiently staffed, thereby putting patients at risk. Nurses are leaving the profession in their droves putting pressure on the nurses still there. My daughter wants improved care for the patients and adequately staffed wards.

Yes, I support the strike 100%. In principle.

Having worked on an already woefully understaffed elderly care ward, I'm not sure how it will work in reality. There are no "spare" staff to cover & it's never going to happen that everyone can just be discharged to clear the wards. Dr's & HCAs I assume will still be there on the days nurses strike, but they do different jobs. They can't just fill in for the day - the skills are very different.

@CurlyhairedAssassin

And you get peoples backs up by claiming nursing is comparable to an office job. And that the most difficult bits are worthless

Baffled that some posters are so willing to display their utter ignorance like this.

I am a midwife, although currently working in higher education. I 100% support my nursing colleagues and I hope that the RCM also votes to strike. (And, for the record, I stood on picket lines with junior drs during their dispute with Hunt.)

If you don't work in nursing / midwifery or the AHPs, you cannot understand what it is currently like. Crisis doesn't even begin to describe the situation. No one wants to strike, absolutely no one. But we cannot go on like this.

@OldEnoughToHaveReadBuntyDr's & HCAs I assume will still be there on the days nurses strike

Yes they will, just as the nurses covered for the doctors when they striked.

@OldEnoughToHaveReadBunty no I think drs will cover but as far as I know rcn registered hcas will be entitled to strike as they've been entitled to vote and will benefit from the strike action

There are all sorts of jobs. There are the obvious like air traffic control, pilots, train drivers, ships' captains, senior military staff, fire crews, senior emergency despatchers. Senior engineers at energy plants (nuclear etc) Police and other law enforcement agencies. Border agency staff where you're responsible for the safety of migrants. Senior prison staff. What if your cockup in presenting a case in court meant that someone walked free who then went on to murder multiple people. Or abuse multiple children or women who then go on to commit suicide. There are plenty of others. Basically any job where you make a wrong call in your daily working life and it means that a whole heap of shit rains down on many many people below you.

@CurlyhairedAssassin I'm an 8a nurse and DH is in a 85k job, so he makes double what I do. We're both graduates of similar unis, we're also the same age and graduated one year apart. DH has the same class of a technical based degree.

His job isn't skilled and is certainly demanding, but he can pee when he needs to and gets a lunch break. He doesn't need to stay late to stop someone being neglected, get hurt or die. I've never seen the stress of his job disturb his sleep. I however routinely wake at 3am to worry about work, am chronically dehydrated and need to drink huel at work to make sure I get a meal. His overtime is always paid at time and a half. I get 3 days more annual leave, that's it for my perks.

I definitely can't say I'm in financial hardship but that's only really because of DH's high wage. If I was a single parent my hugely stressful, high grade nursing job would barely cover rent and DS's nursery fees. I'd probably go agency in that situation because I couldn't live with my work stress plus the financial stress, bloody well done to those that do. I'm most grateful to my HCAs who are like gold dust and would make more money as a cashier or batista.

His job is skilled, bloody hell

Then why are they demanding a pay raise of inflation plus 5% which currently means a 17% pay raise? If they are striking over conditions of work, like understaffing….why have the excessive pay demand added in that seems sure to have any proposal rejected and a strike called?

Some people go absolutely feral for nurse/NHS bashing, any time there is a post like this on MN.

Because our pay has been suppressed for over a decade

Should a cleaner make the same as a staff nurse?

Many people who don't work in acute medicine DO have more than an inkling if they have multiple family members who do though. If you live in a city with a major teaching hospital, most people have multiple family members working in the NHS and hear day in day out how bad things are. And people who also use the services have eyes and ears. They can see the pressures. The problem is that ministers who need health care probably pay to go private mainly. Those that don't won't get the same standard of care and attention as the man on the street, I'm sure. I'm sure that no-one left Boris struggling when he was in with COVID because they had to rush to someone in another bed who was worse off than him.

On the same days though? That's scary.

Dr's won't cope. Just through the huge volume of work. They'll need to be shown where the pads are kept too. I support the strikes but am genuinely worried how safe the wards will be during them. As we all know, they are regularly unsafe as it is.

Lucky him. What does he do? I think more and more, young people are going to look much more closely at what certain careers actually entail when deciding what to study at university, rather than looking at all the recruitment marketing aimed at getting people into pressurised low paid professions like nursing and teaching. It's certainly sad, though, that youthful enthusiasm and idealism gets knocked out of our young people so quickly when they find out that the reality is vastly different from the misty-eyed feelings of fulfillment they were promised.

Vast majority of the jobs you list will be earning far more than a nurse.

Though tbf, usually a heart felt and sincere apology is enough for the Police.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to ask this again. DD was in hospital in 2008. The nurses, paediatric ward, didn't stop complaining about their working conditions during the 48 hours we were there. They also had time to squeal ad nauseum from 1am to 4am whilst complaining about their workload. That morning they were evidently too busy to get an 8 year old toast and milk after emergency surgery overnight. Her mother hadn't stayed. I looked after her, got her something to eat, with permission, read to her, etc.

Not the first time I'd heard nurses complain and certainly not the last. Having experienced that level of complaint (and there was a Labour government in 2008 although it was QEQM) and a level of disorganisation in the halcyon days of a Labour Government, I genuinely find it hard to believe that the complaints now aren't at least 50% politically motivated.

Why all the complaints in 2008 under a perfect Labour government?

For years on here MNetters have been told they shoukd be gratefulnfor sub-optimal care because it's free. A) It isn't and why do nurses think it is. B) why should anyone be gratefulbfor sub-optimal care?

Misplaced gratitude and the NHS's encouragement of it has a lot to answer for.

The NHS is not fit for purpose. It needs to be remained along the lines of social insurance schemes in much of Europe. Most nurses disagree with that. I fail to understand why any nurse would disagree with something that would lead to better outcomes for their patients if it were not for left wing ideologies.

The NHS is in the state it's in because of the people running it. For many years until very recently it was run by Simon Stephens one of Tony Blair's cronies. He allowed much of the mismanagement to happen not the Conservatives. Some lessons could be taught here to Machiavelli because in funding terms there has been more and more given to the NHS which has collectively mismanaged what it has been given.

The excuses for QEQM, Telford and Shroesbury are what exactly?

@walkinginsunshinekat a huge issue is the NHS rarely provides a heartfelt apology. It provides excuses.

Well my post was in response to someone who claimed that the higher up you go the easier a job gets becaue you can delegate etc.. No doubt in some roles that's the case.

What does piss me off is young people being exposed to shite on the telly like Selling Sunset etc and whatever the UK equivalent is. People sitting round in an office filing their nails and gossiping/bitching waiting to earn a HUGE amount of commission once in a while just for showing a potential buyer round an expensive house. Or selling a diamond ring or a handbag to someone once a month. Disgusting that people get paid so much for that kind of non job.

@CurlyhairedAssassin I agree but you do realise that people in those sorts of non jobs have very little job security, statutory sick pay and statutory holiday. The day they stop making sales they lose their jobs.

An organisation I work closely with had 300 staff at risk of redundancy over summer. 140 people lost their jobs. I wonder how many nurses are presently at risk of redundancy?

I agree, this is why people get annoyed. I am not pretending to understand all of the responsibilities and how difficult nurses have it, but at the same time others should not pretend to understand all other jobs either. You cannot possibly know that every high paying job has it easier, and it isn't true.

Very true :( which is why i specified the Police, in context of the PP going on about equivalence.

No

@Overthebow

That's kind of missing the point

I googled the info from an rcn site, so apologies if I'm inaccurate. I haven't done nights or weekends for about 20 years, so sorry for the inaccuracy.