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’ve just displayed the typical crab mentality I see in the UK, how dare they ask for what they think they are worth when I am on a low income????

Well, any contact I have had with the NHS, the standards of care and cleanliness and "nursing" have been appalling.

You can big your roles and responsibilities up all you like, but we have all been in hospitals and seen nurses lolling around chatting and generally just lolling around until the end of their shift rather than actually getting things done.

Yes nurses go into the profession to help people but that’s not a reason to take advantage of their compassion, goodwill, decency and humanity, no?

I’m not a nurse by the way.

I thought inflation was 10.1 not 12 percent. Has it gone up again and I missed hearing about it? Most people will get 5 percent or less. Personally think nurses are not being realistic asking for 17 percent. Last year they got more than other public sector workers to reward for working through Covid. This year they should get similar to other public sector workers. High pay awards increase inflation. We all need to bite bullet to try to get on top of inflation. I got 4.5 percent this year and 3.5 percent last year. I would like 17 percent but not realistic as we are in recession. Time for high pay awards is when in boom times.

You do understand how negotiation works @caringcarer? You ask for more than you realistically think you can get, employers make a counter offer and you meet somewhere in the middle.

I'm more disgusted that we're now at the point where we feel there is no alternative but to vote for strike action (I'm a B6 ward nurse, working FT and I'm definitely not on £35K!). I've worked for the NHS for over 20yrs. My ward staffing is approx 50-60% of what it should be. That doesn't also count in when we should have extra staff, on top of minimum numbers, for patients who need 1:1 nurses. We don't leave shift on time, and often will start earlier (we don't get paid overtime). Breaks don't get covered because there isn't enough staff. Training is difficult to do during shift times as there is no cover for those doing the training. Staff are leaving in droves (particularly after covid), there's no one to fill those vacancies. No one wants to work on the wards. Every night, I worry about my staff and my patients, and how they'll get on. Not because I don't trust my staff, but because there isn't enough of us to give safe care. Don't think that we haven't reported these issues and escalated them - we've been reporting it for ages. We worry every shift about something awful happening and it being because there wasn't enough of us there.

I love my job. I love where I work. I can't see myself doing anything else. But if this strike means that the Government will sit up and listen, and do something to make nursing a viable and good career choice, where staff recruitment and retention is solid (which in turn will make it safer for our patients), then I'm all for it. My friend's cleaner gets a higher hourly rate than I do (and I'm pleased she gets paid decently)...but I know the qualifications and responsibility I have in my job are a lot higher.

Another thing...."Christmas day staffing levels" on an acute ward are the same as non-Christmas day staffing levels. Just because it's a holiday, it doesn't mean that less staff are needed. In my ward's case, no matter what day it is, it's still a 30 bed ward, with acutely ill, level 2 patients!!

I have had exactly the opposite experience.

I've needed in hospital and outpatient treatment several times, and have never encountered poor care or cleanliness, and only very rarely lack of patience - which could have been down to sheer exhaustion on their part.

Nurses are human - they get tired, they have personal worries, but 999 times out of 1,000 they leave these at the door when they go on duty.

Nurses need to strike- the gov isn’t listening. So many vacancies the nhs is dangerous.
Doctors and other HCP will support and will do the same- we’ve all had massive pay erosion

For all nurses who are complaining, did you not research pay and conditions in NHS before you trained to become a nurse? You surely must have gone in eyes wide open. If you wanted more money you should have gone into different career. Not being goady just realistic.

Jesus Christ!

Some of them have been there for years. It hasn’t always been like that. What a stupid comment!

Silly nurses, not predicting government pay and economic and fiscal and monetary policy, nor inflation spiking. Oddly, none of my affluent friends who work in the City whose job that is did it either, just making their millions trading on volatility rather than billions using this supposed power of prediction.

Spectacularly missing the point. Claiming that an entire workforce should be denied a wage that keeps pace with inflation, that they don't have the right to strike for decent pay and conditions, because you personally have had an unsatisfactory experience with someone in that job role is completely and utterly batshit. Also no one said anything about "causing needless deaths".

Not being goady my lily-white *rse!

i have read mn posts about bonus for their cleaners, a week pay was considered extra. Effusive praise simply how wonderful the cleaner is. Tales of binmen,posties all left money,and gifts routinely at Christmas. The etiquette of what one gives the cleaner,postie,the nursery staff,the CM. Lots of competitive posting ohh I give Veuve Clicquot, oh i give a biiiig bonus. Nothing too much trouble when financially rewarding the postie,binman,cleaner but hell the nhs staff ask the govt for pay increase….and it’s hell no they just loll all day. Loll, loll and more lolling as the giggle and eat sweeties at nurses station

100% support the strike

You absolutely are being goady. Either that or stupid. No one goes into nursing thinking they'll be fabulously wealthy, obviously. They aren't striking because they want the salary of a city banker. They just want to not have to use fucking food banks! They want an end to the pay freezes and rises so small they amount to a pay cut in real terms.

Footballers aren't paid from the public purse. Much as I think nurses are underpaid, this is a ridiculous post.

@caringcarer absolute state of you

✊Solidarity with all striking nurses.

we see you and we appreciate you x

Not being goady. Not much @caringcarer - what an inappropriate user name.

@caringcarer of course it was goady. You seriously expect people to think it wasn't?

I fully support nurses, firemen, police etc getting increases
My issue is when the public sector give somebody sat in an office a big increase, they already get crazy pensions
Office staff should be excluded and front line increased

I’m glad your dying husband received good care and treatment. Sorry for your loss
However, no none is an angel in a uniform.No one and it’s that deification and that excessive reverence I’m afraid it’s unhelpful.
staff aren’t angels, they’re sisters,cousins,partners, neighbours. People doing a professional job seeking a professional wage the is commensurate with their duties

Football isn’t comparable it’s a for profit commoditised industry. With some highly paid footballers.nhs is not comparable . Football has a few star names and all about them, their individuality and unique talent. NHS is a team and it’s more of shared endeavour , sure you get some superstars in their specialism , team and common purpose is the driver.

I trained in the early 90s. When a nurse could afford a 2 bed house in a small central-England town by herself.

I now earn more selling bespoke gifts, between the kids' school run, sitting in my little office than I could as a nurse. The minimum wage has been creeping up faster than nurse's salary.

Why bother taking a degree for 3 years to work in a tough environment, short staffed, with so much responsibility and accountability, doing bullshit paperwork to keep your registration, that you live in fear of screwing up and losing, in order to earn not that much more an hour than anyone else who turns up to any job?

It's this whole 'vocation' bollocks isn't it. You want to prey on the goodwill of people who have that caring side to their nature. Not all of us had it. Some of us wanted a career and decent remuneration for the hours worked.