To be disgusted that nurses may be striking for a 17% pay rise!

[justonemire]

Of course nurses should receive a fair salary and of course they have as much right as anyone else to ask for a pay rise. However to ask for a pay rise that is 5% above the current 12% inflation rate is just ridiculous and never going to be approved.

The average nurses salary is £35.600 and this would equate to a pay rise of £6.150.

Yes nurses do a great job but so do a lot of other key workers in the public sector who have only received 2%

The government simply cannot accept the nurses pay demands because if they do everyone else would go on strike for a similar deal. Where would it end.

Therefore the outcome is that people will not receive the proper level of care we are all paying taxes for. If there are strikes then The NHS will be run as if it is Christmas Day. God help us and our loved ones then.

There will be resulting misdiagnosis and deaths and where will the fault lie? Yes you can blame the government, Putin for invading Ukraine and pushing up food and energy costs, etc but I think we will also all blame the nursing profession too for asking for a completely unrealistic 17% pay rise.

😂😂😂😂😂

You’re funny!

Rishi is that you?

everyone else would go on strike for a similar deal. Where would it end.

Everyone else should! It would end with a properly-paid workforce, and more power in the hands of the majority. Sounds good to me.

Solidarity with all striking workers ✊🏽

Hmm this says a lot about the crappy state of information fed to the public - don't get wound up by inflammatory headlines.
Perhaps enlighten yourself to the background and the history before being disgusted by the nursing profession or other people considering strike action.
If you screw people over long enough then the action to keep them will have to be more drastic than if they had been treated better from the start
(I am not a nurse)

This is taken from here www.rcn.org.uk/-/media/Royal-College-Of-Nursing/Documents/Publications/2022/March/010-068.pdf

"The RCN is calling for a substantial, restorative, pay rise above inflation to address the nursing workforce crisis and the long-term reduction in the value of nursing pay.
Based on our evidence, we urge the PRB to recommend a restorative pay increase of 5% above RPI (Retail Price Index). A pay award at this level is an essential down-payment to restore lost earnings caused by successive years of below inflation pay awards.
Our evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that the nursing workforce is in crisis.
The PRB must make recommendations that will support the recruitment and retention of nursing staff.
In addition to an initial restorative pay award, we call on the PRB to recommend immediate measures to implement national Retention Premia Payments and Recruitment Premia Payments for the nursing workforce as a matter of urgency to address the ever-worsening workforce crisis."

If there are strikes then The NHS will be run as if it is Christmas Day. God help us and our loved ones then.

Don’t be so dramatic, there have already been nurses strikes in different parts of the UK in recent years as well as doctors strikes and as far as I’m aware everyone didn’t just croak it.
Care is still provided.

Yes, you’re being unreasonable.

The average nurse does not earn £35k. People already dont receive the level of care they should partly because of nurse shortages. Why will there be resulting misdiagnosis and deaths, how is that the nurses fault. Do you work in healthcare, the doors dont close on Cheistmas day.

Perfectly reasonable what they are asking for, especially when you consider how long they had a pay freeze for in addition to the unimaginable shit they have to deal with every day, which, quite frankly the rest of us don't, including many other public sector workers.

I suppose if everyone did it and got it the govt would get more in taxes and pay out less in UC and they'd have the money to pay nurses.

Well how these things work is the union demands a lot, the government says no, then they negotiate down. If they started off asking for 5% it would be negotiated down to 1 or 2, and that's not enough. NHS pay has been low for years, so the unions are playing a game to make sure the starting negotiations are high and will end up somewhere within a reasonable ball park.

17% pay rises are the natural outcome of years of restricting pay rises. You fall behind a little bit in year 1, a bit more in year 2, more again in year 3 - and lo, you get to a year where nurses are using foodbanks and it takes 17% to return relative pay to what you earned all those years ago! Not a rise in standard of living - a return to what you had before.

Did you go out and bang those pans during the first lockdown, OP?

You would be reasonable to complain about the profits the private sector are reaping from the NHS.

This. Agreed. Do you know any nurses OP? Other public sector roles who have been similarly shafted by the Tory govt should also be up in arms.

Nurses have had below inflation pay increases for years!! It's about time.

All other workers should also go on strike, it is not a race to the bottom.

They've been overlooked and underappreciated. It's about time that changed.

Their pay is abysmal!! How are you supposed to hire and retain the best without raising pay? All national worker pay needs to go up.

The government simply cannot accept the nurses pay demands because if they do everyone else would go on strike for a similar deal. Where would it end
Would it end with more people getting paid a fair wage for the job they're doing? I don't see how that's a bad thing. Nurses are woefully underpaid.

They should be paid a substantial increase. As far as I understand it, as a non NHS worker, there has been a pay freeze so long that in real terms nurses (and other staff) have seen a real terms pay cut. All while the NHS is haemorrhaging staff so remaining workers have increased workload and responsibility.

Yea, I agree it seems like a lot on one go, but if they had had incremental, appropriate increases year on year it wouldn't be such a huge leap.

While we're at it let's fund medical education and reduce student debt for those working in healthcare so we increase the workforce with positivity.

But I’ve banged my pans…

Ah well, don’t go to casualty next time you’re in a car crash 🤷‍♀️

Recruitment and retention are huge issues facing the NHS workforce. If you do not make your staff feel valued they will walk, especially when working under very high levels of pressure. As a nurse of 24 years I am humbled to read your support on here 🤗

They deserve everything they're asking for OP.

Have you been on daily mail . Co . uK this morning 🙄

Also, recent study found around 1 in 5 nurses using foodbanks. Utterly appalling.

YABU. One of my friends works in a healthcare area (very senior) and has been making contingency plans for strike action. The minimum staffing required to cover strike action is higher than what they're working with on a daily basis... We don't actually have the numbers to staff a strike-level service! That's how bad things have got.