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.

A lot of this kind of attack is the public sector should not be paid well. Well in many areas that would apply.

Is it okay then for good quality people not to work in them? From the police to civil servants, it is okay to underpay?

Surely that means on balance you are retaining the wrong people and services get worse?

Because I note when nurses, civil servants, police, military do go and get better salaries, there is a kind of outrage also, because they are the self sacrificing classes?

I think that is over because public services now carry huge vacancy numbers but that will just persist as these services cannot retain good people.

YABU!! Have you worked for the NHS and risked yournown health to help heal others? How about during the pandemic? Put a cake in that hole in your face and shut up, unless you alone can do what our wonderful NHS have done and are doing!

@Clavinova Where are you getting your info?

In Ireland, newly qualified nurses start on €32542 (plus a €2466 location allowance for hospital ward staff = €35k starting salary) for the first 12 weeks and then it rises to €34437 (+€2466 = €36900)....this is just 3 months after qualifying.

A year and 3 months after qualifying nurses are earning €39291 plus a €2466 allowance = €41757. The euro is equal to the dollar at the moment so this is already higher than your average wage claim. Wages rise every year for the next 8 years. Add to this the fact that premium payments are higher in Ireland (for example double pay on Sundays) which adds an extra 12-18k a year to base salary. Benefits and working conditions are better eg fully paid maternity leave.

This is all before a 7% raise which is going to be fully paid before February.

I don't know anything about Italy salaries but I'll take your figures with a pinch of salt.

@Mumof3PrettyBoys did the nhs workers not choose to work for the nhs? The nurses didn’t choose to be nurses, no?

Yes and many have been nurses for 20 years - over which time their pay and conditions have been eroded so it is no longer tenable and you get nurses are not coming through as the pay and conditions are so bad.

perfect storm.

Arrgh - younger nurses that should have said.

Well there's plenty of them choosing not to be nurses now.

Irrelevant if they are leaving and the NHS can only get nurses & other AHP's, at huge expense, from abroad.

T&C's and wages have to set at a level that attracts and retains staff.

A recent report has pointed out that a higher salary would save the NHS money.

It's all based on Scandi public services for British tax rates.

If British people accepted lesser public services, including the NHS, then some of these criticisms about how do you pay nurses might make some sense.

But since British people do not want to pay further tax, you get run down public services and a government talking about efficiency which is code for cuts. Nurses are the human punch bag for this, they shouldn't be, and people are leaving because of it.

This is true across the board in nhs. If all HCP were given even a 20% pay rise, it would still cost less- given the current reliance on non- permanent agency staff. Huge vacancies in nursing, medical and AHP staff right now, and it could all be addressed. But that would be far too sensible to do 🙄

The cost of a pay rise is also complicated by the number of people who would not need (so much) universal credit if they were paid enough to live on, and the increase in tax revenue - govt gets 20%-40% of the pay rise back!

Not just the cost of agency but the amount of work NHS staff have to input into foreign non EU nurses, who have no equivalence in training to that of UK nurses.

That was the beauty of EU staff, they had very similar training and most spoke better English than UK staff!

Not indefinitely. It's an employer not a priesthood 🙄

YABU. I'm a HCA on a 34 bedded medical ward. Staffing is constantly at unsafe levels. People do not realise how that impacts us knowing we cannot give our best care to patients. I have the opinion that HCA's are underpaid but nurses even more so after 3 years of training and the responsibility they have.

I do believe the Tories are deliberately trying to break the NHS so that the public plead to have it privatised on the grounds that it is not fit for purpose.

You’re absolutely right. Trying to look after patients and always falling short through no fault of your own is soul destroying. We want to give the best but our hands are tied by the short staffing.

I whole heartedly stand by a nurses strike. At the moment they are so understaffed the stress and pressure is intense which is causing staff to leave in droves. The only way to retain a functioning staff and to recruit new trainees is decent pay. Pay them what they deserve. These are the staff on the ground putting themselves at risk ever single day (let's not even start on working throughout the pandemic for no benefit other then patronising claps).

I'm a teacher and will also be striking. My pay has not changed from 2014-2022. We received a tiny increase this year but school got no funds to pay for this so we now have less support staff making our jobs even harder and more stressful🤯 we can't do more with less!

What is genuinely confusing is that any general member of the public would believe ‘privatising’ would make it better! Erm no, it would just mean it is run for profit. Why on earth would anyone think that was 1 better or 2 cost less.

it would cost more- much more

duh

Thank you 😊

This has got to be a troll post. Surely nobody is this tone deaf or oblivious as to what's happening in our NHS?

You're being so fucking unreasonable! Just reading your OP has given me the complete rage.

See this interests me. I don't doubt that you are wrong for a minute but the thing with free markets and recruitment issues is that they will inevitably have to pay more if they want staff to deliver their service.

I ve said this before, they don't care, Govt ministers don't use the NHS.

If Barclay needed a knee op, do you think for one moment he would join an 18m waiting list?

Its not yet an election issue, even with 7m, there is no out cry and the govt will try to use the strike to their advantage.

They know staff wont go all out, so they can blame the unions for failings, just like they blame Putin etc for everything else that they ve fucked up.

They certainly did but thank goodness they did as we need all the ones we can get - just like care workers.