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

Literally in the stats you provided, 37630 students were accepted in 2020, of which 8545 were 18. Not even close to a majority.

Looks like your maths isn't as great as you thought either.

The idea of a 40 year career is also dependent on how many reach 40 years

It's fairly irrelevant how many start at 18.

They'd also have to work full time for 40 years to get the full benefit

Such a nonsense argument

And why shouldn't nurses be entitled to a decent pay and a decent pension anyway?!

You don’t know average age from age the most nurses start at.
I posted the demographics showing this and you keep going back to averages.

Perhaps this will help, when you look up “average wage” do you think that figure is the wage most people start earning at?

The same concept applies to nurses. The “average age” of a nursing student isn’t the age most nursing students start at.

Good news is we are crying out for nurses. For the bargain price of circa £37k just on fees (let alone living costs- you'll have to pick up some bank shifts on top of the degree and placements to survive unless you're fortunate to have financial support from someone else) you can spend 3 years doing an intense course with full time placements to reach these supposedly high wages with all of the perks. As a bonus due to the current chronic shortages you can do the job of several nurses, and can support colleagues still suffering from the effects of working in healthcare during covid. Sounds bloody brilliant to me, if you stick at it for 40 years you'll get a nice pension too!

Or the alternative is I'm sure people would support you getting paid more as well as nurses.

Most student nurses aren't 18 when they start the course. Hope that helps.

I literally posted that 19% are 18.

Most newly qualified nurses are 21 😂😂😂 I was 25 when I started my degree and I was considered one of the babies. Even now at band 6 and 31yo, most of my students are way older than me!

100% support them. I’m an NHS employee and member of Unison, we are also balloting for strike action but really hoping the government see sense and it won’t come to it. Not a single one of us want to do it but at this point it seems the only way to be heard.

18 is the most common starting age.
Majority is not the same thing, no age is a majority age. So you’re off in la la land.

And the 18yr olds are the highest % of all students.
More students start at 18 than any other age group.
18 is the age with the most students.

Not sure how else I can word it.

Of course no one age is going to outnumber all the other ages (be a majority) and taking an average age is also not how you determine the most common age for a nursing student.

% students starting degree aged 18 by year
2011 20%
2012 21%
2013 20%
2014 18%
2015 19%
2016 19%
2017 19%
2018 22%
2019 20%
2020
22%

This means the average from a decade of data is 19% as @Topgub said repeatedly.

19% is not most. Stop changing your comment to try and swerve it to meet the data. You are wrong.

Also, have a look at drop out rates, and what the most common age is to actually complete the degree, as the highest amount of drop out happens at a younger age.

£27k on fees*

"I said nurses start at age 21, and most of them do."

Statistically incorrect. As we have pointed out.

I'm still on the register, I retired this year, havent worked since i left, 3 months ago. I will continue to be on the register for another 2 and a half years to do some bank nursing. If I choose to re register after the 2 and a half years I will still be on the register but not working full time.

I know of 4 others in my immediate circle of friends that are in the same position, this will definitely skew the figures as above, many nurses stay on the register without working full time. As for the 60 + I would say the majority of those are part timers and /or management.

These figures are also skewed by the pandemic which saw previously retired nurses come back into the profession to run vaccination clinics or previously vacated posts to help out.

Further to this , these figures will include nurses who work in the private sector, gp surgeries and abroad as they still need to be registered with the nmc, so definitely not nhs or on its pension. Also includes part-timers who due to having carer /family demands can't work full time.

Yeah this makes no sense lol.

Look, you've backed yourself into a corner.

It's fine, it happens.

Move on and accept that most nurses arent working full time for 40 years.

And that they deserve decent wages and pensions for what they do regardless

I'll remind you what you actually said:
Most nurses start at age 21. Pension age is 68. That’s 47yrs or 40yrs if you take off 7yrs to have 2 DC and take extended time off work (male or female nurse)

They don't and no matter how you twist and turn, the stats don't lie.

You might be better off remembering the old adage "when in a hole..."

When are posters going to realise that their individual opinion on whether nurses salaries are high enough is irrelevant. As is the comparison to their own personal salary. Or the ridiculous comment about redundancies. Likewise for those banging on about how wonderful the pension is and worth sticking around for.

If the package being offered was enough, we would not have a recruitment crisis. UK trained nurses would not be leaving in such high numbers every single day. The NHS would not be pissing billions up the wall on paying agencies for a last minute shift. The government would not be spending millions more on recruiting nurses from abroad, only for them to realise how truly shit it is and then leave.

Your individual opinion on whether the salary is enough for the job does not matter one tiny bit. Market forces determine how good it is and they are telling us it is absolutely diabolical for the conditions and stresses the nurses are under at the moment. Raise the salaries and you will retain staff and attract more to the profession. This will reduce burnout and in turn retain even more. In the longer term, this will stop the waste on agency staff.

It is very basic economics - why it applies to management salaries and directors but not those who are at the front line makes absolutely no sense

I’m not changing my comment at all. You lot have substituted what I said with “average” or “majority” When these are not synonyms in statistics. They have very different meanings.

Are you having a slow day? YOU said "most nurses start at 21" (direct quote) and the data YOU shared proved that to be statistically incorrect.

It does make sense, you’re just confused.

I never said most nurses work for 40yrs, I said they could. And they can. And some do.

”Most” doesn’t refer statistically to the average or the majority, but the mode.
And the data I shared proved it to be correct.

You did.

Repeatedly

You haven't answered why you think nurses don't deserve a decent wage or pension?

The stats proved most nurses start at age 21. As in age 21 is the age nurses most frequently are when they start. As in the mode.

Not the average, not the majority. The mode.

I think nurses already have a decent wage and an excellent pension.
Theyre not low paid. 🤷‍♀️