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

Even if you’re not the best nurse, you can quite easily build up a annual pension income of £80k/yr by working a normal forty year career.

"Easily" and "working a forty year career as a nurse" don't seen to belong in the same sentence.

I was reading that 1 in 9 nurses quit this year so I don't think many of them are lasting 40 years, despite the pension.

@lolalouisa84

Thank you. I have been very lucky with my placements so far (lots of CNS placements) so have been able to get lots signed off but I have also had to be quite strident at times as some nurses simply can’t find the time to sit and sign off the pad. I have been on placements where I have seen nurses start and leave during the time I’ve been there. Staff turnover is truly alarming on the wards and the government doesn’t seem to even ask why. If I wasn’t so disoriented from the workload of theory and placement I might have time to wonder what the hell I am getting myself in to. But seeing how hard qualified nurses work, the skills they have, the effect of the dedication and the skill sets they have has on patients, and yet how they struggle financially is appalling.

Well, I don’t disagree understaffing and stress is a major issue causing nurses to leave. But the pay isn’t appallingly low and the pension is still generous, so it seems disingenuous to claim they are why nurses are leaving and demand a 17% pay raise…

Conditions bad= yes
Pay and benefits bad= no

They're not allowed to strike about the NHS being run into the ground because that's political. So they are striking about pay, which is what they are allowed, legally, to strike about.

Well that’s a bit of a porkie, because you can strike over pay and/or work conditions like dangerous levels of understaffing.

It’s not true you can only strike over pay.

If you want a national strike, it has to be about something that affects all members nationally. I imagine that individual staffing levels in different hospitals and different departments would be quite difficult to ascertain.

As a teacher, different schools have local strikes about conditions in their schools, but it would be quite difficult to strike nationally about general conditions that weren't considered to be political. The teacher unions, for example, aren't currently balloting members in private schools because the pay dispute doesn't affect them and that wouldn't be allowed.

@noblegiraffe
So, this strike is only about pay and demanding a 17% pay raise?
Nothing to do with patient care and understaffing? Why are nurses claiming it is all about the latter and nothing to do with the former?

If they cannot strike about patient care & understaffing because, as you said, it’s not affecting all members nationally, then why even strike if striking won’t affect understaffing & improve patient care?

If the vote & threat to strike was just to raise public awareness, job well done. So why not call off the strike so that patient safety isn’t further jeopardised? What purpose could actually going through with the strike serve?

So, this strike is only about pay and demanding a 17% pay raise?

Legally, yes. But if nurses were working in fab conditions and hadn't had the piss taken out of them for years by this government then this yet another shitty pay offer might not be the final straw. They have never had a national strike before.

Something has to change in hospitals. Nurses are facing yet another pay cut. Everyone is struggling to pay the bills. If more nurses leave because they can't afford to stay then conditions will get even worse.

Something has to change. A pay increase would help retain staff. Retaining staff would be an improvement over losing even more staff.

Improving pay is linked to improving working conditions.

A 17% pay raise would most probably result in hospital closures and staff reshuffled. It won’t mean more staff. The NHS can’t afford the >£6bn to give them that kind of raise. If this articles figures are correct, they’re asking for an raise of approx. £6k per annum for each nurse, and there are over a million nurses

Nurses are facing yet another pay cut. According to the same article the Government has offered a £1,400 per annum pay raise for each nurse which averages 4%. Scotland nurses have been offered a flat £2,205 per annum pay raise, which averages 7%.

inews.co.uk/news/health/nhs-nurses-strike-december-hospital-delays-1955518

@Discovereads

The £1400 was for all staff. The only people who got close to 4% were band 2 staff who were basically on NMW. Nurses at the lowest pay point it was less than 3%

What that article doesn't mention (assuming from your quotes) is that at the same time they increased pension contributions. So in terms of actual take home pay, there was at most £10 per month, but in some cases the uplift bumped them up a pension bracket and it resulted in less take home pay than prior to the uplift. So they were infact worse off.

This uplift and the knock on effect with pensions is what led to strike action being balloted. It negatively affected many many frontline nurse and other HCPs within the NHS.

A 17% pay raise would most probably result in hospital closures and staff reshuffled. It won’t mean more staff. The NHS can’t afford the >£6bn to give them that kind of raise.

But the government could afford to scrap the National Insurance rise which was supposed to generate 13 billion for the NHS, yet maintain that level of funding?

It seems that money can be found for political decisions, doesn't it?

The government keep banging on about growth.

What is more important to growth than a healthy workforce? Cutting funding, skimping on staffing in hospitals is a false economy.

The question shouldn't be 'can the government afford a pay rise for nurses?', it should be 'can the country's economy afford the collapse of its healthcare system?'

The same argument goes for an educated workforce and the state of schools.

🤣🤣🤣🙄....there's always a 'joker'
I earn 47k ( pro rata) as a nurse and its not sufficient for the responsibility I carry

Exactly. Almost double what I earn. You can be unhappy about the wages or conditions but don't claim you can't live on that! I manage

Yes wholeheartedly support. There will undoubtedly be an impact but the value of nurses cannot be overstated and they deserve twice the pay.
Incidentally, I'm a hospital doctor who is NOT planning on voting for doctors strike.

£50k/yr is the threshold for top 10% of salaries for U.K. outside London (£85k in London). But we’re supposed to believe that £47k is “appalling pay” and that nurses “deserve twice the pay”

thecircularboard.com/uk-income-statistics/

Well get you 🙄

I don’t support the strike. I absolutely understand nurses’ frustration - I worked in the NHS until 6 months ago and am now training as a teacher.

I wouldn’t judge nurses for striking but I would rather it didn’t happen.

I don’t think there is enough money flooding around the system right now to fund everything that needs it. If the pay rise happens the money will come from somewhere else where it is also needed.

I also think that striking is going to negatively impact the backlog

100% behind them.

Just for awareness allied health professions are also being balloted. It will not just be a nurses strike. It will be an NHS progreso oaks strike. Allied professions are also being pushed to the brink.

Nurses get nothing like a 36k p.a pension, total bullshit..... The pension for a nurse in the uk is approx 14k p.a, contributions to the scheme can be up to 14.5% of salary.

On a 17% pay rise.... according to the Kings Fund, such a pay rise would, longer term save the NHS money as they'd not be paying out on agency workers.

In real terms.... pay has fallen considerably since the mid 90s & a 4% rise just means another 6% pay cut.

Wholeheartedly support. Nurses are leaving in droves. We need them.

Why are people behaving as though the hospitals will be left empty with no staff for the entire week? I doubt even if it gets that far it wouldn't be anything of the sort. NHS have agency and they surely will put extra shifts out and pay extra money for people to work.. this is standard practise in my trust if an area is severely short staffed they pay extra for people to work their.

Absolutely support them, I hope they are successful.

Of course!

Yes but I also think the trusts could resolve this issue by stoping advertising band 5 posts. Years of down banding of posts has made the situation worse as the young ones can't see a way to up their pay.

I think where the cuts fall (as it is currently a cut to NHS staff pay) should be discussed with the country. If the people say want to pay staff properly but take the cut from state pensions, benefits, overseas aid etc then that should be respected. If they choose government/NHS workers pay then that should also be respected.

I'm more senior than a newly qualified nurse however if they go with the Scottish offer of a set amount for everyone, it will erode the pay premium of senior posts so instead of being unable to recruit junior staff, you will be unable to recruit senior staff.