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.

The problem is that agency nursing pays so much better. You can get £50 an hour agency, or £13 as NHS staff nurse. It makes more sense to pay a decent salary and not have high staff turn over, and having to get expensive agency staff to cover. Long term it will be beneficial.

Yes the £50 and hour is obviously too tempting to miss. The balance is if there is always work. If the NHS had enough staff and agency work was unreliable then the permanent NHS job would suddenly be much more inviting, more would be recruited, agency work would become less attractive etc.

Pay restoration would make the permanent jobs attractive, solving the recruitment and retention problem across the NHS ( for the most part)

while all HCP have had significant pay erosion, of course many roles remain unfilled.

the opportunity is there for the government to fix, but they do not want to fix it

The crazy bit is that the initial ask by RCN was 5%over inflation,the Government,again,kept us waiting and inflation went up.
The shortages in Hospitals are bad but they're worse for mental health and in the Community.
Lack of social/mental health care increases to load on hospitals.
Many of those who are in hospital could have avoided admission in the first place and be discharged sooner if the Community side were the ones being targeted as hospital would feed the benefit.
We've reached a tipping point where if the government don't act there won't be the staff for any service.

And some one mention this up thread but it's worth repeating.
If you take a break and have not done enough hours over the last 3 years you cannot re-register.
To work as a nurse again you need to do a Return to Practice course which you pay for and can take 3-12 months usually via a University.

Are you having for your taxes to subsidise all the privatised things we already have and that provide a woeful service - such as the train companies, just for starters. I don't want to subsidise these companies, many of which are owned by foreign companies meaning that the money is not staying in the UK. Surely it's better to pay everyone properly and they then spend that money here (apart from when they are not here, of course).

happy not having

While it isn't always the case, the 'terrible service' given by the nhs might be down to the expectation of one person being sufficient to do 3, sometimes 4 , peoples jobs. Early start, no breaks, finishing late. Nurses are leaving because the responsibility, risk and workload by far outweighs the pay. Pay nurses a balanced fair wage and retention wont be such an issue hereby addressing staffing.

I know staff who have left because they fear their nurse registration is on the line and management certainly wont back them up if anything goes wrong. If everyday you go to work and you're short staffed with insufficient resources eventually that becomes the norm, and you stop reporting it to management as it is the norm.

So when something happens,
them =did you report your concerns',

you = 'no because you know what it's like'

them = ' but you didn't report it so guess whose fault it is!'

For those saying then just change job or why did you get into it In the first place? It is often the case that staff don't realise just how bad it is until they're in the thick of it. Life commitments, and geography might mean it is difficult to find other jobs or professions.

I see what the govts line of attack is... Nurses are doing the work of Putin and ruining everyone's xmas.... what a c u next tuesday that Zahawi is.

Far cry from the days of Covid.

Nurses didn't party their way through the pandemic. The Tories did. Shows how low they can go when their first port of call is Putin fgs.

@knickerelasticgonetwang I am a CP social worker of nearly 20 years and prior to that I was a nurse (so long ago I was F grade). Yes we also have to pay registration costs and lots of professionals do. It is certainly not unique to health.

Zahawi's messaging is so tone deaf its unreal. How about he and other ministers and all Tory MPs forgo their salaries for three years to send a clean message to Putin and contribute those forgone salaries to nurses or food banks or early childhood settings its the poorest areas in UK? Some one slap that man

.....and from a party that took, directly, money from Putin... elevated Putin's men into the HoL & allowed London to become the number choice for Russian criminals and thieves to hide their ill gotten gains.

Plus backed Brexit.. took us out of the EU.. again a Putin policy aim.

....but the RCN....

The only people who do Putins bidding in the UK are the Tories.

I totally agree nurses are just being down right greedy most people would kill to have their salary’s , nurses please be realistic you ain’t worth 17% pay rise that’s a joke be realistic

Asking for a 17 pcnt payrise is funny indeed ,why not just go for 50 percent.

I see the shills are out again. Tories getting worried?

Nurses greedy...don't make me laugh. They have had their pay eroded for years . Deteriorating terms and conditions year after year. How about community nurses paying to do their work. Their mileage has been cut back so much that they have to now pay to do their job once their mileage 'allowance' is used up. Never mind the wear and tear to their car. Then there is paying to park in their workplace. Then there is their yearly fee of £120 to pay the NMC their registration fee...an organisation that does nothing for the actual nurses. I was on the same money for over 10 years, no incremental rises or pay increase, a real term pay cut.

If you want crap healthcare , support the government. No person will willingly accept the terms conditions and pay with the risk to their mental, and physical health and ultimately their registration. Nurses and doctors are leaving with good reason. Doctors and nurses crying at work and when they leave work, if you don't know why maybe it's time you educated yourself.

Then while you're at it ask why the Lords and ministers of Westminster get supplemented meals, money for their second hones, a BAR at their work, (wtf) significant pay INCREASES from their pay review body which shockingly (dripping with sarcasm) they never decline no matter what the 'crisis' is. Their economising never quite stretches to themselves. They have enough money to waste on the likes of michelle Mone and her ilk , millions and billions.

The government have totally lost the argument.

The unions are controlling an effective media narrative. Sunak and HMT should have not allowed themselves to tie pay increases to productivity gains. It may not be the same as working harder, but when you have 40,000 vacancies, you wonder why they were so stupid.

Even Steve Barclay looks like he ate a cup of cold sick for breakfast

The legislation is a mistake - enforcement means sacking. Very good. How do you retain people by these means?

The logic is nowhere

They should be. They’ve just lost yet another MP.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/09/ex-tory-minister-quits-party-and-lavishes-praise-on-starmer

I'm so glad that people with opinions like yours are in a minority.

And why's it ALWAYS the people who don't know how to use apostrophes?

If you're going to live here learn the language, etc.

Bitter that you never got the opportunity to earn as much as a nurse yourself?

I won't go into the ons and outs as I am always accused of being a troll on NHS threads because some can't comprehend that others may not have the same opinion as them.
But I will say that is really annoys me when nurses are referred to as low paid or paid a pittance. A min of £27k+ is not a pittance. MLW is.
Overwork and understaffing are different issues, but in absolute terms, nurses are not low paid.

You re entitled to your opinion but 27k is a pittance in mine.

After parking rent or mortgage, council tax, energy, running a car & parking fees, they have nothing left for a holiday etc or aren't they deserving of a break in the sun?

On top of that.... they have 35 years to pay back 45k of loans (and high interest rates) once they start earning more.

If wages had kept pace with inflation since the mid 90s, the basic pay for an average nurse would be around 35k.

BUT regardless of our differing opinions, the fact is Nurses etc think its not enough.. so they are leaving the NHS... a Lidl management graduate will start on 39k and get a car.....

@Katypp Relative to other professional jobs, nursing is low paid for the level of responsibility.