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.

I sacked off nursing due to the crappy salary. I deserved a better life. Never mind strikes, the risk of harm is everyday attributable to poor staffing. The levels of staffing on a strike in some areas will resemble the same as if it wasn't a strike day.

Im a band 6 senior nurse, that has been qualified over 20 years and I can tell you this now, I do NOT earn that much. Wish I did , if what the media is portraying about our wages was true, we wouldnt need to strike. I know colleaques who are using food banks, registered nurses who look after the public, having to use food banks just to feed their families. Who are looking afrer us, when we look after you ?. I agree that what they are asking us a bit much, and we know we arent going to get any where near that but we have to try, when our wages have been capped yet again to 2% for the next 2 years by this pathetic government. We have morgages that are going up, we have gas and electric bills to pay. A newly qualified nurse earns less than a person working in a shop. Im not dissing shop working by amy means, but they dont have peoples lives at stake. Rant over.

Popcorn at the ready...

The majority of nurse you see on wards and out in the community on the front line are like myself, a band five. The salary for this is below. Come back op when you risked your life going to work and was only given a surgical mask, plastic apron and a pair of gloves for protection.

<2 years' experience £27,055
2-4 years £29,180
4+ years £32,934

@Strawberriesandmelons - yes because you have to live.

I wish people would acknowledge that Conservatives want this outcome. It is what they have voted for, and implemented for over a decade.

Nobody should be berated for striking or packing up and getting a better paid job for less stress. Nurses do not owe the general population and given their voting pattern, they are getting what they vote for.

i Was paid that salary over 15 years ago Since then Health Service then got rid of being paid extra for doing nights weekends bank holidays and on call payments but the responsibility was the same or even higher due to lack of staff and 2lives at stake

Yes I would strike conditions unsafe then more so now My Practice Nurse Colleague was a Midwife in Kent Where sadly all the midwifery care was poor and she told me that long ago

YABU

I was a nurse for 13 years. I'm bright. I have 2 masters degrees. I was band 5. I looked around. People with 20-30 years experience at max band 6(they were also talented) So on that thought in London the max salary would be £37000 ish and that might be the highest salary I earn. Pathetic for London. Pay progression is a triad, talent, access to opportunity and availability of opportunity. Trust love to down and safety critical specialist work of nursing .

The work of nursing is also not measurable and attributable. It is patient centred, not task based. This is a problem because How would you even prove the added value, I.e task = x outcome. Commissioners/ policy makers need evidence to make funding decisions.

Most people have/ earn more money than me so I don't think they are all that badly paid, but they deserve it,and shouldn't be blackmailed into feeling can't ask for more money, just because they have a vocation. I'm sure they would prefer not to and will take steps to limit disruption.

I’m torn on this one.

Wage inflation will just fuel general inflation everywhere for everyone.
If everyone got 12% rise that will ensure we have 12% inflation next year too, will everyone want another 12% payrise every year over and over?

But nurses do deserve better pay and always have. The paltry rise they were given after Covid was an insult and has made this particular scenario so much worse now. They should have been given a 10% pay rise back then.

You are being very unreasonable. The Tories have decimated pay in the NHS. If course nurses should strike for better pay.

Disgusted? There are lots of things to be "disgusted" over, this is not one of them.

Pay them.

😂Hahaha.

I am disgusted by your message. Our nurses are amazing, their passion, commitment and what we asked of them through COVID is deserving enough of a 17% payrise let alone what they deserve for everything they do above and beyond the rest of the time. I fully support the strike and they should get their payrise. Good luck to them. And no, I’m not a nurse.

@justonemire
It's about more than money. They need better and safer working conditions. Nurses are running on empty and deserve every penny they get, which is nowhere near the amount you believe they earn.

What do MPs earn? They have not gone without a salary increase over the last 12 years.

I will support them on this decision.

If you had just spent two weeks in an NHS hospital with a sick child like I have you would not be questioning what nurses deserve. Save your outrage for limitless banker bonuses.

Thank you.
PS spoiler alert for OP- it's not a 17% pay rise- public sector staff have experienced a real term pay cut every year.

The reason that "people will not receive the proper level of care we are all paying taxes for" is not because nurses' payrise expectations, but because this shitty government has been wasting billions of your hard-earned tax money on chum-run businesses, instead of spending it on essential services and staff who provide them.

Unless you’re a nurse, you don’t get a say

Hear bloody hear!!
This race to the bottom culture makes me sick. If other workers stood up for their rights too, we'd all be receiving fair pay. But instead those that do nothing just want to drag everyone else down to their level.

I'm not a nurse but also a frontline NHS professional on the same payscale. I consider my wage to be objectively good (band 7) but given the complexity of what I do, the knowledge and qualifications I need to do it, and the risk I manage, I'm underpaid compared to what I could get in the private sector in a similarly skilled role with less risk on my head. I chose this career because I find it interesting and have the possibility to make real difference to the life of my service users and the general public, but I'm incredibly burnt out to the point I don't think I can continue in the long-term. If I leave, the NHS loses all my specialist knowledge and experience but I will have to do that in the next few years unless we get more staff because I cannot continue like this.

My issue isn't with the initial wage, it's the stress, burn out, the incredibly high level of risk some of us manage, the violence/abuse we experience, the professional grief (sometimes because we didn't have the resources to provide a level of support that could have prevented it), the lack of pay commensurate to progression...

P.S. The £1800 pay rise I got equated to £12.61 a week after NI, tax, student loan and the increased pension contribution which doesn't provide any benefit to me but I have to pay to stay in the pension scheme.

Oh dear. You are sadly misinformed. I suggest you do some more research away from the Tory news outlets.
The average 35k is incorrect. Check out agenda for change 22/23 payscale. The majority of nurses fall between a Band 3 and Band 5 with each having scales within the bands. Senior nurses are on higher bands but obviously there are less of them but they add their salary it into total so the average amount is not reflective of the majority of nurses pay.
They are pulling a 12 hour shift abd work nights. They are being puked on, covered in blood stains and numerous other bodily fluids, they are verbally and physically attacked and all the while they are learning, having to keep up to date with policies and procedures, they are assesed regularly keep portfolios and pay to keep their nursing registration. They are under pressure daily, short staffed, and having to work with agency staff who are paid more and know less so usually have to carry the shift and do all this whilst doing their best in caring for patients.
Tell you what, no one could pay me enough to do what they are doing.
I'd rather work in Aldi for same pay

OP can you please tell me of another profession where every 12 months you have to pay £180 just to be able to look after others. The average band 5 nurse is on £. 26000 and when they leave university they may have over £35000 in debts. Compare that to police officers who do not go to university and have no debts and do not have to pay to look after you. And no wonder nurses have the hump

I work in a hospital. The majority of nurses earn about 27k. The only ones I know getting anywhere near that "average" are the managers and ward leaders. We have lots of vacancies because why would anybody come to work for that when they could earn nearly double as an agency worker, could choose their shifts and decide when to work. Add to that the pressure, the 50k student loan debt and having to work twice as hard because we have no staff, and I think that 6 grand is not unreasonable...