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.

Track and trace is a Royal Mail service to track packages.

If you meant Test and trace, it cost billions, mostly for the millions of “free” LTF and PCR test being processed every day.

What these nurses need is a peerage like Michelle Mone got handed by a Tory PM. They should take up underwear design instead of saving lives, we all need a good bra. And maybe they'll all get a 39 MILLION POUND bung like she did. And she didn't even have to go on strike. Give her a round of applause, I'm sure we all appreciate her.

Approx 6 billion of the 29bn spent across 2 years was on tracing, which was a complete waste of money, though the Govt wont publish the exact figures spent in the 2nd year.... considering we didn't really have much in the way of LD's and a vaccination roll out, seems surprising another 14bn was spent in the 2nd year....

But 6bn would pay for a 8% pay rise.....

I'd happily see HS2 scraped in favour of pay rises and a massive recruitment drive of nurses and doctors. Isn't that costing something like 125bn??

A quick google of full fact says that £37 billion was the full aka maximum (not total spent) budget. £13.5 billion was spent 2020-2021, of which the majority was spent on testing. The covid app cost £76 million, and Serco (tracing) was £623 million.

Commons committee into the whole budget of test/trace concluded that all of it was a huge waste of money and did little to zilch to decrease spread... despite this, the GOvt ploughed on, wasting another 12 to 14bn the following year (exact figures yet to be confirmed by ONS)

Guess who signed it off? Sunak, the same guy who says NHS staff cannot have a decent pay rise (despite his vigorous clapping whilst partying with Bojo) but who also doesn't use the NHS, so is unaffected by its collapse, similar to all of them, none of these people use the NHS..... so stop defending them... they haven't your interests at heart.

Hindsight is always a wonderful thing. The first wave deaths (March to July 2020) were a drop in the ocean compared to the subsequent waves from Dec 2020/Jan 21 onwards.

I’m not defending anything. In my extended family and friends group across Kent and Essex, we didn’t know anyone who even had covid in March to October 2020. In the second wave (November 2020 to Feb 2021) everyone had/knew someone who had covid, and most knew someone who had died from covid too.

Couldn't agree more.

I work in a public service where striking is forbidden.

The public sector pay rise for meant a cut in real terms - we got a fixed sum of around £1800 a year - for those younger in service that an 8% rise but for those with over 10 years service it was less than 2%. We also worked through covid . Also do shifts . We are very understaffed to dangerous levels .

And when all the other emergency services strike it's my service that pick up the slack .

I support a fair pay deal for all the emergency services.

The Tory government are dismantling the nhs. Run it down, so staff leave, poor patient to staff ratio, hence poor care, public become unhappy so they blame the nhs, ( not the poor funding by the government) this leads to a gradual transition of the public to private healthcare. Eventually the government infiltrate healthcare with USA type healthcare charges, and its too late to save the nhs. Guess who gets the contracts and back handers to 'supply'this new healthcare system .. the Michelle Mones, Rees Moggs of this world.

Hunt has written a book about privatising the nhs, Sunak was wheeling and dealing with private healthcare companies in the USA about 2 years ago, and probably since. Many private healthcare companies have sprung up all over the UK, NOT ONE MENTION BY THE UK MEDIA, but it is rife!

The British public are sleep walking into the dismantling of the nhs, the sooner they wake up the better.

The British public are sleep walking into the dismantling of the nhs, the sooner they wake up the better.

True. Completely.

I imagine the opening post, from an OP who has not returned even once, was really a government representative.

paintitallover

I agree.
nurses are looking for some pay restoration, not even all pay restoration.
anyone who is against this must be feeling exceptionally healthy or has private healthcare

Absolutely , theyre taking note of public opinion so they can get a sense of public opinion and then manipulate the narrative to appeal to one or the other.

The Tories aren't so good at tightening their own belts. Wonder if they'll happily freeze their own pay increases for the next 15 years as they have nurses? ...then cut back on their extensive expenses and benefits, like they have for nurses mileage ? .....or maybe stop handing out our tax to random projects and companies imbedded with Tory ministers.

I think we already know the answer. Being a Tory minister is a venture in self interest and gain, backhanders and seemingly bullying more and more.

It would take a very foolish member if the public to not support what the nurses are asking for

We don't know that at all...& its not hindsight to see the waste and the lack of effectiveness but then keep spending with no adjustments made... & the ppe debacle was a disaster.

There was little or no testing for CV deaths in the first wave... my DD was a care worker and says many people died with a persistent cold/cough and no one was classed as a CV death, my partners Nan died of a a cold with a persistent cough in April 2020, no mention of CV, no tests done.

How would you know? ... no testing... did i mention that?

Anyway, this is all a bit diversionary or is it? ...as these same ministers who say fuck off to nurses and care workers now.. were vigorously clapping them during the pandemic... then offered them 1% as a Thankyou and that triggered the current collapse in morale.. which has led to the strike action we will see shortly.

I've just had some top class treatment from a surgeon. This surgeon is a leader in his field. He could, under a private system, name his price.

British people are being cheap about their public services. If you don't pay good people to work in the NHS properly then you will get the service such cheapness deserves. And then the penny pinchers and the "domestic home economics" crowd will be very angry because they will get a fraction of what used to be available. It is cheaper for me to pay tax than it is for private healthcare. I am a higher rate taxpayer. I could afford private healthcare if I chose.

How many of the posters on this thread would like to check a quote on this thread for insurance to get a fraction of what you get on the NHS for tax? It's a bargain, including paying nurses and healthcare staff a living wage.

@LexMitior The problem here is both parties follow and do not lead... they simply don't explain the benefits of a well funded NHS... instead both tell fibs about how it can all be done with better efficiency.

Just as both lie about Brexit and the damage it has done to the UK and the NHS, 4000 Dr's who would otherwise be here working are elsewhere... how many more nurses, care workers, AHP's and Dentists ?

Even if these figures are out a 1000 or two, who wouldn't an extra 2000 Dr's (many of whom would be GPs) back in the NHS ?

Yes health ins is a fortune plus there are very long waits for treatment now.

YABU I hope they get it … but suspect they won’t, even though they deserve it.

Yes I agree that parties are basically not candid about cost in an ageing population.

The fact that nurses and doctors now pay for their university fees means they don't feel like they owe the NHS the same loyalty. They need to pay those debts off.

I have just had done great, efficient care for myself and my family. The costs are peanuts. Internal NHS for a top surgeon and assistance - £160.

In a good, well maintained hospital. People do not know they are born. I have paid for lesser care in other countries. I have paid for private care in the UK and the cost would make your eyes water.

People who have chronic conditions, relatives with chronic conditions, small children, old relatives, they need to wake up a bit.

Insurance that is any way decent and not connected to employment is hundreds a month. And that won't cover any chronic condition at all.

Completely agree. It always amazes me when posters suggest moving to an insurance based system as a cheaper. The idea that you could introduce shareholders, pay less into the healthcare system, and yes get a better, fully comprehensive service is just cloud cuckoo land.

I’ve worked in other, insurance based systems. Not the US. The staff were paid more. As it was fee-for-service, they had an incentive to focus on “easy” cases - people I’d discharge to primary care without a second thought were kept in the secondary care system on annual review for life. Meaning waiting lists were massive (18 months or more, compared with 4 months to see me in the NHS). Far less was covered - you paid full whack for medications, often spending a couple of hundred quid a month (a week of amoxicillin cost my husband $80). Physio, dentistry, medical equipment etc wasn’t covered. GPs charged $125 copay per visit, compared with £160 flat rate for the year in the UK. Cost per person was about 4x what the NHS receives.

Can I ask each one of you. Does a teacher police officer or firefighter have to pay out of their own pocket to retain the job titles NO another kick in the teeth for nurses and other professionals involved in the Healthcare sector is they have to pay over £120 per year for the right to stay a nurse but no one seems to know that fact. So if the playing field was a little more level get all the other professionals to shell out to be be called a teacher etc and see what they feel about it

Yes it’s ridiculous, the regulatory body we have to pay for. GMC is £420 per year. And they’re the ones not fit to practise🙄

I've worked in a few private hospitals in the UK.Food better nicer rooms, wouldn't say there's superior care though.

I’ve met plenty of people unwilling to use their private insurance because they still need to pay for part of the investigations or consultation. And they can’t afford it. And this is generally people who get it via work as a work benefit.