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

I don't think nurses are badly paid. I think HCAs are terribly paid. The strike will not benefit them.

Over theyears I have known friends go to work in the private sector none were paid more than they earned in the NHS and staffing levels were often no better, they had less sick pay, often did training in their own time and weren't paying into an NHS pension scheme (the one positive).
Ive liaised with private complex community care and the service they offered was shocking and money or the saving of money to make more profit for the company organising it was the main priority. the ethos of the private sector doesn't sit comfortably with many of us,

Yes, 100% behind them.

I don't because I don't agree with striking, but if nurses want to strike then they should be able to.

Yes, and I hope Unison nurses follow suit.

Sundays are key as a HCA I know this is hard if you have kids. But nights and weekends make a huge difference. The banding is complex. I'm part time and I take home £1300 it's OK. I don't do nights anymore though.

Do I agree? I'm not a nurse, so I have no right to agree or disagree. However I consider the right to strike to be inviolable, and I trust nurses as professionals to make the correct decision.

@LouLou198 no it's not, it's 16.84 for a top band five. According to my last payslip. To be honest, even if I could get paid more working in Tesco. I wouldn't. I love my job.

However I do agree that HCA's are appallingly paid for the amount they do. They should be at least a band 3. Our play team are crap and they get a band 4. Which causes some resentment.

@antelopevalley yes it will. Everyone who is registered with the rcn on AFC pay scales will be allowed to strike and they will get a pay rise too

I agree that it's a profession but it can also be a vocation I googled the meaning of the word vocation: "a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation." no where does it say that you don't need eduction or specific skill sets for something to be a vocation or be poorly paid.
My DH has "strong suitability" for his career (I couldn't do it), he trained for many years to get to the level he's at and earns considerably more than i do.

It’s about time.
The first 3 years of my career, I worked gruelling 14 hour shifts on an incredibly intense acute mental health ward, often not taking breaks because I was the only nurse managing 20 patients. No regular support staff, mainly agency workers without knowledge or experience. Constant demands from upper management. Colleagues leaving, left, right and centre. Many days I went home after 16 hours because I had to complete so many incident reports, either that or there was no nursed on the next, so I’d be waiting for someone to come and have the medicine keys eventually. Often I would go the WHOLE DAY without a proper meal.

A portion of this time on the ward was at the start/peak of the pandemic and you can not begin to imagine trying to care for and isolate 20 patients with varying degrees of acute mental illness, confusion, distress. I watched colleagues die on ventilators after being spit on by mentally ill patients because they did not have adequate PPE.

I have left the ward now, for a community role (which has its own challenges) But that experience opened my eyes more than anything I’ve experienced in my life. Enough is enough. Nurses deserve better. Support staff deserve better. And above all, patients deserve so much better.

100% support them. They need to do this FOR their patients, by not striking they are letting the government further destroy NHS workforce with their poor working conditions and insulting pay.

I really hope teachers and other public sector workers follow suit

Yes. Teacher here in total solidarity.

[[http://There is power in a factory, power in the land
Power in the hand of the worker
But it all amounts to nothing
If together we don't stand
There is power in a Union.

Now the lessons of the past
Were all learned with workers' blood
The mistakes of the bosses we must pay for
From the cities and the farmlands
To trenches full of mud
War's always been the bosses' way, sir.

The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters
From many far off lands
There is power in a Union.

Now I long for the morning that they realise
Brutality and unjust laws cannot defeat us
But who'll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackeys out to cheat us?

Money speaks for money
The Devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone?
What a comfort to the widow
A light to the child
There is power in a Union.

The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters
Together we will stand
There is power in a Union.

c]]

NHS Scotland has not improved its offer! Please do not state it’s an improvement to negate the responsibility, professional qualification and degrees that band 5 have by narrowing the pay gap between the bands. It’s so divisive!
It’s worse for higher bands. Not only that it reduces the incentive to actually become a registered. The difference between a top band CSW and a registered nurse is £1.20 an hour. Gap between a top band 4 and bottom 5 is 6p an hour.
If we can afford to pay agency to staff hospitals on premium rates, then we should be able to staff hospitals with nhs employed staff renumerated appropriately.

That didn't work - here's the song ... play it loud

Yes.

100% behind a nurses strike.

I work in hospital management and I’m behind them. Hour director of HR last week said she felt the risk was minimal because they’ll never actually do it. I think she’s utterly deluded but not in a position to challenge.

Yes, I fully support the strike. I am a retired midwife and never thought I would say that. But my daughter is a nurse on an acutely understaffed ward at a London hospital. She really is broken by it all. Like many others she is seriously thinking about quitting.

What I understand is that from mid band 6 down the new offer is an "improvement" on what you've been previously offered (which was 1% more than in England). Don't forgot that top band 4 may only 6p more than bottom band 5 but once you've reached top of your band thats the maximum you can ever earn and it's only after quite a few yers of service.. Secondly those I know on band 4 e.g. ED support workers for example) are often doing a highly skilled and responsible job which is rightly being recognised. Most HCAs are band 2 which for what is now expected of them is pretty poor money.
Anyway I'm not holding up the the pay offer to NHS Scotland as a great deal I meant to put the worked "improved" in quotations marks. I was simply using the fact, stated by the John Swinney, that money will be taken from other areas of the NHS to fund the "improved" offer and this is likely to be the same for NHS England and will the public support this.

word not worked.

How much does a nurse in the nhs make?like standard hourly rate?I've always worked in the private sector so I'm unsure.

hourly rate Scotland has a slightly different rate.

£13.84-£16.85 for band 5. Take home is £10.62-£12.19

100% behind nurses. Dangerous practice is commonplace due to insufficient staff, poor support, and terrible working conditions.

Shame the multitude of other professions who are on the same pay structure (AFC ) wouldn't support nurses since they will benefit if the strike is successful. In reality though, Nurses should NEVER have been put on the same pay structure in the first place.