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.

Well, whether I personally agree with your position or not OP, two things I can tell you that you should find reassuring:

1. The strike will never happen
2. Nurses will never get a 17% pay rise

HTH

You don't really understand how negotiations work. No one goes in with an offer they expect to be met, either unions or employers.

Normally you start off offering half the amount where you expect to end up as the employer and asking for double as the union.

Otherwise there's not enough territory to negotiate

The average nurse does not earn £35k.

Even if they did, is it enough? wages have stagnated for years, tax bands haven't increased & housing costs are completely disproportionate.

My DD started on a salary of £35k in their finance-based job age 25. She’s good at her job and is now on nearly 39k less than a year later with nowhere near the training commitment of a nurse or teacher. I say she is paid fairly for her work though.

Nurses (and other public sector workers) have been shafted time and time again and I fully support any strike. I am part of a different public sector workforce and we are likely to be striking soon. As it should be.

Police aren’t allowed to strike

I echo the PP re the support for nursing staff. It is true that we are striking for a fairer pay deal to reflect both the real terms pay cut we have endured in previous years, and to reflect the level of responsibility shouldered by every nurse no matter where they work.
We are also striking to achieve a safer experience for our patients. Many areas are working on a 1-10 nurse to patient ratio. On days where staffing is poor some areas are working on a 1-15 trained to patient staffing ratio, with only 2 HCA. It is impossible to provide safe patient care with these levels. Every nurse I know wants to provide a safe and nurturing environment for our patients. Adequate pay will help in both attracting and retaining staff. None of us want to strike, but we will if we have to in the hope that it will result long term in safer care.

If you want decent care in hospitals, then you need to be prepared to pay decent salaries that allow and encourage people to remain in their jobs. Your jealousy shouldn’t stop professionals - and let’s call them that and remember that nurses are trained professionals who should be treated as such - being decently remunerated. Lots of public sector jobs have been woefully unpaid for years while the tories sort to undermine them. It’s time to fix that.

@Darker completely agree - my DH owns a company in the tech/software industry. He knows directly the director of another tech company who have diversified to only work with the public sector - the NHS more specifically atm because (in the words of his director friend) "the NHS is a cash cow". And what's worse - none of the projects they develop/work on have thus far been properly implemented!!!

I back everyone striking for higher pay. It’s appaling that they have to do this in a cost of living crisis after being underpaid for years.

Blame the government not the nurses.

but then prices will go up in order to be able to afford all these rises so nobody will be better off unfortunately

@DenholmElliot11 we will strike.

Hmmm, I am a nurse.
I sometimes do Bank shifts.
In one of the Trusts I bank they have reintroduced staff parking charges, but the areas where staff can park were often either not available or patients had already parked in them.
Many parking fines were issued (around £40 each)by the parking provider contracted to the Trust.
There was an outcry as paying these would undoubtedly cause hardship for many
The Trust advised they would refer anyone who was experiencing hardship to a Food Bank.

YABVVU

OP NHS pay scales are freely visible on the internet. Most nurses stay at band 5 for their entire career. Top of band 5 is 31k - it took me 8 years to get there. Many nurses at bottom of band 6 (clinical specialist or deputy sister/deputy ward managers) actually initially end up with a pay cut on promotion due to less unsocial hours and increased pension/NI contributions.

Dear @justonemire

"Due to low staffing levels we now expect you to do the work of 3 people and to work longer shifts. This means that you will get no time for your allocated breaks and probably no time to go to the toilet but that's ok because you won't have time to have a drink. You'll leave work (eventually, long after your shift has finished), but you'll be exhausted and stressed out. You won't be receiving any more pay for the extra responsibilities though, but we're sure you won't mind. We still expect you to do the job to the highest standard despite all of this and we have no desire to address the lack of retention of staff or to entice those newly qualified to stay. Any complaints or concerns you have about the chronic understaffing or safety concerns regarding those who use our services due to that understaffing will be ignored.

Keep up the good work

Your Employers"

So if that was your employers attitude what would you do OP? Put up and shut up, leave or fight for better? Nurses have put up with it for long enough...nothing changed, left in their 1000's...nothing changed. Now they are fighting for better.

but then prices will go up in order to be able to afford all these rises so nobody will be better off unfortunately

My dss has a PhD in Economics partly in conjunction with Cambridge.

He says ‘wages fuelling inflation’ argument is a load of shite.

I fully support them striking. They have been underpaid and undervalued for far too long. I want the people responsible for my health (not just nurses, doctors, cleaners, etc) to be paid a wage which enables them to live well, look after their own health and well being and be fit to care for me and my loved ones. I want them to feel valued by society and to see the job as a desirable one, one in which they could stay long term and build up valuable experience.

I'm sick of the tories creaming off money left, right and centre and appealing to the public to understand why they can't pay people decently while they laugh with their mates at the profits they're making.

As an aside, I want companies who say you know what, we're making enough money as it is.

Worked 40 years in the NHS, recently retired . Never would have supported strike action in the past but I have never seen the low levels of recruitment , staffing and moral as we are currently seeing . Worked many years with zero or below inflation pay increase and even 17% would not reinstate the long term effect of this . I would have worked longer but working conditions have deteriorated so much I had to retire before I was unwell with stress or exhaustion.

I'm on the fence when it comes to this. I fully support nurses and understand they don't get paid nearly enough for what they do, but people are suffering in hospitals due to staffing issues without the nurses going on strike. I pity anyone who needs hospital care the day of a nurses strike.

Not another one of these ...

The nurses are not striking in isolation. Check out the number of unions who recently returned YES votes to strike action - that's after having to meet the ludicrously high 50% turnout threshold.

People across the public sector and beyond are on their knees, working in dreadful conditions, and are at the end of their rope. You don't get upward of a 50% turnout - with an 81% YES vote as happened in a recent ballot - unless things have degenerated to a very bad situation indeed. You want someone to blame - blame the employers, who have repeatedly refused to negotiate and on whose heads entirely it is that things have reached this point.

I'm with the nurses and completely support their action.

I'm in the public sector and we're getting a flat £1925, which equates to 10% for the lowest scales and 4% for the higher. Not 2%

A hospital Trust were recently advertising for Band 5 nurses at £11-something per hour.

The Costa in the same hospital were advertising for baristas at £14-something per hour.

The ward-based nurses on the ground, with pressure and responsibility and providing hands-on nursing care are not generally earning an average of £35K.

I was shocked recently to see what nurses earn in other countries.

If people will die if nurses strike I would suggest they are an essential service and should be paid accordingly, in line with their skills and responsibilities.

100%

It is disgraceful that the government have allowed it to get to a point that nurses would even consider thinking about protesting, let alone actually striking.

And I fully support their right to strike and any strike action.

@Prescottdanni123 There's contingency - the hospital care will be there on the day of the strike.

but people are suffering in hospitals due to staffing issues

These staffing issues are one of the reasons they are striking! How else can they recruit more staff it they can't offer them a fair wage.