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.

So, what, you want staff who are already overworked and at breaking point to do mandatory overtime? Or run wards with no nursing staff? As that's what you're suggested by doing away with agency staff. We'll just increase all nursing contracts to 60 hours a week, that'll solve it! Think about the reality of these suggestions, funnily enough if nobody in the NHS/government has come up with your idea as a solution - there's a reason.

Also re your previous point - I doubt you only know Senior Charge/Lead Nurses. Or the specific salary of every one of your friends.

@nurs

Posted too soon - @Nurselife Just wanted to say, great post and highlight this section again

Ironically on strike days there will be provisions to protect life and limb so it is likely to be safer to be a patient on those days

I posted similar on page 1. It's true.

As the government seemed to find £37 billion behind the sofa for track and trace and also money for bridging the DUP to vote with them they can find the money if they want to. The choice on what money is spent on is always political.

Also, whataboutery is an ugly look. Instead of dragging down the public sector with your own sour grapes how about you unionise and also shout for better wages if you’re being ripped off?

How do we pay for this?

Easy. Same way the government pay for anything they want to do.

Always plenty for that.

I knew this would come in handy

Private sector pay is down to the private sector. For nursing the private pay is much higher and if the NHS does become privatised then they would be paid a lot more as insurance is super expensive. (I have worked in both the private and public sector).
I choose to work for the NHS as the majority of cancer care is in the public sector and this is my chosen career.
if a person is in the private sector they can move and negotiate pay.

With regards to who is going to pay for it, Its basic economics. A 3000 pay rise per year - over £1500 of that would go straight away to tax, ni, student loans, pension - so more or less straight back to the government. The other £20 per week increase would be spent in shops - boosting the economy.

Nursing may retain some nurses meaning agency nurses not required so that £3000 a year would probably be negated by about 4 agency shifts which the trust has to pay for when they are low on numbers. As stressed over worked demoralised nurses are more likely to be off sick. If you are exhausted and stressed it is not in a patients best interest as they would be more at risks of mistakes.

This is not just about money, this is about professional educated people who are demoralised overworked and wanting to improve patient care whilst being able to provide for their families.

Sorry should have said £28 per week £1500 divide by 52.

And of that £28 spent in shops, a proportion will go directly to the government through VAT. The increased spending from a significant group of the workforce could drive up demand, creating jobs, generating more tax (though obviously we have a shortage of workers, not jobs...)

Putting money into the pockets of people who need it and will spend it is excellent economics for a recession.

The top of band 5 - which for most hospital wards is the majority of nurses - is £33,000. You couldn't rent or buy a family home in my city (not London) for that money. Even with two people, the other would have to be earning a lot. We kind of need people to be able to afford to do core nursing jobs.

Absolutely right Eskarina and Helen Marie!

Some of the nurses do a wonderful job. Others, not so much, but that's another story. They're currently earning the same as me and I'm a technical manager. I suppose the problem is that if everyone was paid what they were worth in the NHS, the government would go bust. Having said that, my GP published earnings of £119,000 last year and I don't know how that correlates with me not being able to get an appointment for at least 3 weeks!

As an ex prison officer (who don't earn enough for the risk they put themselves through each day/what they have to see and deal with anyway) who worked through the sh85 show that was the past few years - I absolutely support nurses striking and asking for more.

The powers that be take and take, drain the life out of real people and give them nothing for it.

I'm sorry that the NHS appears to have let you down, HOWEVER, none of the issues you have mentioned as examples of "Bottom of the barrel nursing" are actually nursing responsibilities and are the responsibility of laboratories, clerical administration, radiography departments, these are not examples of "wrong nursing". Where is your evidence that MOST nurses need retraining?

It wouldn’t really go bust as the amount the NHS has to spend on all the uncovered shifts via agency would cover a lot of the pay rise. As the roles would be more attractive, less sickness and a more productive work force.

The biggest thing people forget is the level of accountability and risk. One error from a stressed over worked, tired nurse that can’t even take their unpaid breaks could be fatal or detrimental to those they are caring for.

Well I don't think much to your punchline 🙃
It's not just nurses, it's midwives too and all other staff that are currently paid less than upper band 6.
I'm at the top of my banding and have been for 3 years. The only way I am able to increase my pay, is to do further training and apply for the same job under a higher banding. How is that right?
I will be standing with my colleagues when the strikes begin.

@Trinidading3 not one of those examples you wrote are nurses responsibilities, sorry to ruin your rant. Nurses have a thing called revalidation, this has to be completed every 3 years and is to show that each nurse has undertaken extra training etc during those three years, if not completed, they lose their pin meaning they can't work as a nurse so I suggest you toddle off and get your facts right

If they are not happy they should all leave. We will save millions. Everybody happy.

I’m a nurse with 13 years experience in one field, not to blow my own trumpet but I’m GOOD at my job, I’m able to handle a lot of what’s thrown at me. If I left, I know it would be a loss to my team and patients. But I am planning on doing exactly that as soon as I can find something else!! If all the unhappy nurses left, who do you suppose would be there to staff the hospitals?

Agency will fill the gap at £500 a shift and screw the NHS and the taxpayer into the arms of privatisation

Yes. If several hundred thousand staff resigned the salary bill would go down.

We would no longer have a health service, but never mind, eh?

This exactly. When we start loosing the experienced staff it is hard to replace them. I have 17 years experience and I go over and above for my job, miss breaks so beds are cleared for new admissions etc. The targets are more important now than patient care. I cannot describe how stressful working in the NHS is. It has always had an element of stress after all, you are dealing with life and death but this is something else it is indescribable.

I am at the moment really suffering with my MH. I cannot do what is expected of me, but, if I don't then patients don't get the care they need or get admitted. My last shift I left feeling really unwell. I was having palpitations due to the sheer stress, I had the worst headache and felt really sick. When my DH picked me up I couldn't even talk to him I felt that unwell. Sadly I have noticed this is now happening after every shift. I am looking for another job.

I know there is 'no money' but something has to give and at this rate it will be the NHS. I feel this is the beginning of the end.

@Battlecat98 and @ChristmasAtHogwarts that is so sad, the govt attitude to pay adds insult to injury, to underpay people for a hard job is not sustainable. I don't expect them to listen, but really hope they do.

There's not 'no money' though the PM and Chancellor are both really happy PPs think this. It's like a drunk driver saying 'look at the ambulance delay' and why weren't that family at home instead of driving tonight instead of the dangerous driving down the motorway by a disqualified driver having sex in their car while drunk and off their heads on coke for a dare.

The money is unevenly distributed but the current government are trying hard to shape everyone's thinking and to encourage conflict while they're at it. 'Why should they get X when I...'. Deliberate and the government are quite good at it. Why after 12 years of 'economic competence' have many workers' wages reduced by 30 - 40%, growth stagnated and an additional c£2.5tn of aggregate wealth flowed to the richest 1%? Why is Ireland's per capita GDP almost double that of the UK's when it used to by 20% less a few decades ago? No criticism of Ireland and friends say their housing market has its own challenges.

Cancel all agency workers?
I did a shift yesterday and out of my team of 6 ,2 were agency and 1 doing an extra bank shift.
So you could ban agency but I'm not sure how you would run the hospital.
Capping agency fees doesn't work either,it was tried in the West Midlands and we had a really tough time as there was a little rejigging as anyone moving to NHSP but most agency staff stayed away until the hospital had to use agency again.
And the trend has increased as more staff leave,we lost some who got Covid before Omicron, weren't able to return to work.

Or... you know.... just pay the loyal, commited nurses what they're worth and give them the working conditions they can actually work safely in then there'd be little need for agency

Exactly!
Add I a bit more imagination as to how to encourage working mothers back to work too.
Amazing that there are so few initiatives when almost 90% of the workforce are women.
Free carparking,outside cities if you don't have a car you can't do shift work.
And if social care could be funded we could at least have a better flow through so they people are only in hospital for as short a time as needed or even avoid it entirely.
But for all this you need better pay to retain more nurses.