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.

@Federal

I didnt say they did, although it has to be up there, right?

@dreamingofsun made the initial comparison to her sons role.

I've asked why they're comparable. They said they're but that as nurses know what the job entails they should just accept it.

ganachee
Also further to my comment above, in 2010 according to the Commonwealth Fund report the NHS ranked number 1 in healthcare globally. 12 years of Tory underfunding is destroying the NHS

We were still ranked number 1 in that survey in 2017 (survey carried out every 3/4 years). What are we now - 4th behind Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia. "The next three countries in the ranking — the U.K., Germany, and New Zealand — perform very similarly to one another."

www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/14/nhs-holds-on-to-top-spot-in-healthcare-survey

www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly

Blair’s govt increased funding funded for the NHS after insufficient funding by Conservatives for the previous 18 years but unfortunately he used PFI which has turned out to be a costly mistake. Then the coalition and then Conservatives govts have been significantly underfunding it since 2010 giving the smallest annual increases to NHS funding.

Nurses don't seem too happy with the Labour government here:

April 2007
The Royal College of Nursing voted overwhelmingly yesterday to take industrial action over pay throughout the NHS if the government does not back down within a month to rescind a decision to postpone part of this year's award.

Delegates at the union's annual conference in Harrogate voted by a 95% majority for the first nationwide action since it was founded in 1916.

www.theguardian.com/society/2007/apr/18/health.politics

April 2006
The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, was heckled and jeered today as she told a conference of nurses that this was a "very challenging time in the NHS".

Delegates at the Royal College of Nursing conference in Bournemouth gave Ms Hewitt a torrid time, venting their anger over understaffing and jobs cuts in the health service.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/apr/26/publicservices.uk

@Topgub definitely up there, I’d say! 😃

But then so one could say is my boring job in education, and my brother’s in highways. After all, you can’t have any more nurses if there is no one to train them or no roads to get to hospital/ensure food/fuel etc reach people.

@Federal

I didnt say we could?

I'm not saying the pps son should be paid less.

I'm saying nurses should be paid more.

ganachee

Or here;
April 2010 (still a Labour government);

A survey by the RCN of 26 of the 168 English health trusts revealed that 5,600 jobs were already earmarked for cuts in an attempt to slash costs. That figure could rise to more than 36,000 in a "worst-case scenario" if the trend was replicated across all hospital trusts, said Howard Catton, head of policy at the Royal College of Nursing. The loss of posts – including redundancies and staff not being replaced if they leave or retire – could happen over the next three years, he added.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/apr/26/health-trusts-planning-job-cuts

Wonder what % pay cut the nurses should have seen in their crystal balls before PPs think HCPs don't have all the responsibility for their impoverishment? 30% pay cut - kneel and take it. 40% - still take it and say thank you. 50% - take it. You should have known what you were signing up to. It's a vocation.

Interesting this week's SoS was keen to say they'd done the contingency plans so patients shouldn't worry. Wonder if an FoI might show how the resourcing for the contingency plans compares to routine under-staffing that puts nurses PINs at risk?

Why? It’s the Nhs that receives 176 billion a year. They decide how to allocate it via their budgeting processes.

Yet people can’t get appointments, wait a year for this or longer for that.

It’s a money pit.

£176 billion spent and it’s still not enough.

System is broken - needs a complete overhaul - not to the american system although to be fair, i’ve had to go private to get seen in a timely fashion, or get any form of diagnosis when i had health issues earlier in life. I was lucky i could afford it. Many aren’t.

Maybe the french system might work where the money follows the individual and there’s an element of competition between services.

I agree. Because it has to be paid for, and we don't have enough money. Sure, we could raise taxes, but then the public sector would demand more money and the private sector would end up paying for it.

We need to grow the money-generating private sector first and improve the efficiency of the public sector. Then, and only then, can we afford to increase pay.

It's harsh, but we ALL need to share the pain.

@Jaxhog

How much of the pain are the top 10% sharing?

addictedtotheflats
We have a costa coffee shop in our hospital advertising barista jobs for £14 an hour...

Is that in central London though?
Nurses receive London weighting on top of basic salary;

www.nhspay.co.uk/NHS-London-Weighting.php

@Bard6817

Or we could just fund the nhs properly?

European systems spend more. Have more staff on better wages and more beds

How will 'overhauling' the NHS create more nurses or doctors ?
@Jaxhog what do you mean by increasing efficiency ? Most wards are run on the least number of nursing staff. Get rid of clerical/admin staff the clinical staff end up doing it instead. The 'managers' are nursing staff who also do clinical shifts most of the time.

This is all totally academic because the Government cannot win this strike. Even if they did, it would be the most pyrrhic of victories.

There will be some loon who thinks, pay them naff all, but the situation is already so bad that the shortage of staff will accelerate. The scenario where nurses are going to stay is gone.

That is across the public sector - I know the popular narrative is that's overstuffed but the turnover of these jobs is now high. That used not to be the case. And the terms, which were attractive are no longer for new joiners.

If the Government want waiting lists down and a healthy population they will pay up. Not 17 percent but they will have to.

Is this another "We are all in it together" type thing?

Tell us all exactly how the wealthy are sharing the "pain" ?

We've had 12.5 years of the Tories telling us each and every year this sort of BS and we 've had enough of it, the number of millionaires went from 720k in 2015 to 2.4m in 2021 and we had a pandemic!!! in fact the UK's wealthy saw income rise during CV.

Its bollox! You lot are treating us like mugs.

@Jaxhog - that would have been a good argument some years ago. But now it has to be addressed or face collapse of staff. If it's latter, then what you are arguing for a collapse in public services.

Had the Government maintained reasonable pay settlements they would be in a better position. Now they are in real trouble. They cannot address waiting lists without nurses.

Of course, they may not be bothered about this. But anyone who uses the NHS, from maternity care onwards should be bothered.

Surely people realise that if pay and conditions don't get better soon people will just leave the NHS at an even faster rate?

Nurses aren't shackled to their jobs and they are not required to 'share the pain'.

It is a stupid argument which suggests the public sector is like a commercial company.

As we all know, a responsible government has systems to protect and help its people - inclusive of health. COVID has shown that.

Perhaps they should be more honest and say - we are scaling back the NHS because we do not agree to pay a wage that can enable staff to live decently. Nobody has to work in public service.

When I qualified 6 years ago I started on 26,700, now I'm a band 6 on 32,000. You wouldn't believe half the things I do daily. YABU and deluded.

You are being unreasonable, why should public sector workers put up with a continuous decline in their salaries every single year!

It's not just about wages. My husband is a nurse and regularly tirhs up at work to be the only nurse on the ward, he works in mental health so you can image how risky that is for the patients aswell as himself. Staff levels are dangerous in all areas, staff retention is dire, staff sickness at an all time high. Would you rather have fully staffed wards with happy nurses or dangerous conditions on wards and patients at risk?

As a student nurse, I applaud this. The degree program and what they expect from nurses for the starting salary is appalling. I obviously never came into the profession for the money, but the hours, the salary, the staffing levels are all appalling !!

Yes you are being unreasonable! Average nurses pay is nowhere near 35 grand! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 please go educate yourself properly!

YABVU
For many years nurses "pay rise" (and I use the term loosely) has been well below inflation. Effectively, a pay cut. I helped at a food bank where very few were on benefits. Many were nurses, HCA, Teaching assistants etc. Employed people who cannot make ends meet. This pay rise will go a little making up the deficit but not completely by any means.

They are also striking to get better funding for the NHS.

I think all nurses and social care workers should have been given a bonus for their work during the pandemic of, I suggest, £10000. Clapping is great but ensuring nurses have decent money is better plus they need a pay increase. Let’s value the people we turn to when we are at our most vulnerable. Then maybe they would stop resigning and be there when we need them. Rather pay nurses than bankers.