Nurses, what result are you expecting from the strike?

[ImEasyLikeSundayMorning]

At work we all assume it will be less than 17% because negotiation is better than strike.

One said the full 17%

Another said she would die of shock if we got 8%

What ate other nurses opinions?

I’m not a nurse, but I imagine many nurses would prefer better working conditions (eg reduced hours, more staff, better resources, more funding), free hospital parking etc to a 17% pay rise. Do nursing students get a bursary at university? They should do. More staff means services aren’t as stretched (and nurses aren’t as stressed). I really worry about patients who have to visit the hospital for treatment every week. How will they be affected by the strikes?

@Sushi7

Personally I think nurses deserve all of that and a pay rise

The bursary ended in 2016. They pay fees now too. I was very "lucky" to have a bursary of just under £400 per month and free fees when I trained.

I’m not a nurse, but I imagine many nurses would prefer better working conditions (eg reduced hours, more staff, better resources, more funding), free hospital parking etc to a 17% pay rise.

Yes, my "demands" in an ideal world wouldn't be more money, they would be:

• Bring back a none means tested bursary for nursing students and get rid of fees.

• Reduce full time from 37.5 hours with unpaid breaks (which no one gets), to 34.5 hours with unpaid breaks (that people actually get).

• Free parking.

• Guarantee that employee pension contributions will not rise again in the next decade.

• Employers to start having to pay the NMC fee of £120 a year.

• Reduce the age you can get a full NHS pension from 68 to 63.

...never gonna happen I know 🤣

@Sushi7 it is a chicken and egg situation with more staff - if you can make more in Aldi or McDonalds than you can as a band 5 on a cardiology ward (which is the case currently), you aren’t going to retain staff in the NHS. That then has an impact on workload and conditions for the remaining staff and they all leave too.

And no there is no bursary, it was removed in 2016 with predictable results on university nursing applications. The government then had to hastily implement a “Learning Support Fund” in 2019, but it’s not as generous.

So much for nursing being a vocation and not just a job. I have spent many hours over the years by the side of a sick relative. I have seen elderly patients fall out of bed unnoticed, emergency buzzers completely ignored by nurses just chatting, patients left for hours on the lavatory unable to get themselves back to bed, relatives ignored by gaggles of nurses more interested in gossiping, night nurses on their phone for hours to boyfriends, patients too afraid to complain because the nurses would take it out on them later. Patients dinners left on the side unable to feed themselves. Nurses go into the town in their uniforms and straight back on to the wards without a worry about contamination. That is just a snapshot of observations. The caring profession, certainly not the majority. Striking is blackmail and you should never give in to blackmailers.

@Ninananna

How odd that your observations are the exact opposite of mine.

@Ninananna what would you call a monopoly employer imposing a 20% pay cut on junior doctors, and saying if you don’t like it you can leave the profession? Is that not blackmail?

Hope you enjoy paying private healthcare costs when the NHS collapses. When I worked in Canada, nurses earned $60-120k. Consultants were on $300-500k. Wages in the NHS have been artificially held down for decades.

@Ninananna

Sorry for your poor experiences.

I have good and bad experiences when on the other side.

I would say that nursing is my job, not my vocation. I burned out in 2020 and now I will not martyr myself.

I also doubt that an actual strike will ever happen.

Nurses DO get a bursary and additional means tested help. Everyone gets £5k, and there is additional means tested bursaries, and training places are many times oversubscribed, so I don't accept that there is a barrier to training. Retention is the main issue.

I also don't understand the unpaid breaks thing. Nurses are salaried so you get paid whatever, surely? Paid breaks is a hangover from the dark ages. Yes, you should get breaks, of course you should, and extra nurses are needed to enable that, and scheduled breaks to be taken.

Unpopular opinion here, but no-one ever talks about the pensions package. The NHS (government/taxpayers) pay 20% into nurses pension. This is huge. I think that is a very valuable part of the package, and should be acknowledged. Employee contribution is in line with most schemes.

Free parking is a great idea as is payment of NMC fee.

Reduced age for the pension, not going to happen. Completely unaffordable unless you reform the pension scheme, to make it less generous.

@KnittedCardi

No, breaks aren't paid. Nurses are paid an hourly rate.

They work (generally) 12.5 hours and are paid 11.5. Or work 13.5 and are paid 12.5

@KnittedCardi I did say it was never going to happen, but in an ideal/dream world. Didn't realise that they brought the bursary back in 2020. That's one thing at least.

The NHS pension is good, but the employer contributions make no difference to how much people actually get. It could be 100% of your salary, but you will still be entitled to 1/54th of your salary for each year.

I would disagree that the employee contribution is in line with most schemes. My friends who work in the private sector pay a maximum of 4% into theirs, not 9.8%. It is a good scheme, but I do pay nearly £300 into it each month for it. I would like to start making extra contributions, because I can't imagine working as a nurse past 60.

Completely ridiculous to think that most people could safely nurse at 68.
Like the two 68 year old paramedics in DHs trust that have to call for back up every time a patient needs carrying downstairs.

I kind of agree but then trusts are spending £billions on agency work. Surely it might be cheaper in the long run to give everyone an 8% pay rise and hopefully this would lead to less people leaving. Improve staffing levels, reducing agency spending and maybe saving money. 🤷🏻‍♀️

66 actually in their cases, I think. But won't get any better as pension ages increase.

No, the NHS pension is now linked with the state pension age. Which is 68, and likely to go up.

You can retire earlier, but will loose a lot more of your pension than you would have under the older schemes.

For me it’s not just about the money. I don’t want to work until I’m 68 to get my pension as I don’t think I’ll physically be able to, so some reform to pensions would be helpful. I also want safe staffing levels to reduce my stress and improve patient care. It would also be nice to have time to actually learn, and funding to do so. What people don’t realise is after initial training we get very basic update training. Anything we want to learn about is off our own back, in our own time and with our money.
I do feel a good 12% is needed without those to be honest as I can’t see myself staying for long otherwise as I might as well have a career change and get more earning potential with far less stress.

The last one didn't cost the govt anything. It came out of our overall budgets for delivering services.
So we're screwed either way. If the NHS gets another pay rise then there's less money for services, which - in my services at least - will mean that we wouldn't be able to fund as many staff so contracts won't be extended, redundancy will have to be found, vacancies will remain unfilled.

I fully support all public sector strikes, but the fuckers will screw us over whatever happens.

I'm not a nurse but an NHS Dietitian. I will vote to strike when our ballot happens. To me it's not all about the money it more about recognition of the poor retention and working conditions. We are all broken and it's only November, it usually feels like this in January or February 😭

This and it's endemic everywhere not just NHS and public sector who do actually have very decent pensions and job security.

Table showing the amount of pension you lose if you retire at 60, under the different schemes.

Under the 1995 scheme, you could retire at 60 with a full pension.

Under then 2008 scheme, you could retire at 60 if you didn't mind a reduction of 24%.

Under the 2015 scheme (which everyone currently contributing to an NHS pension is in now because they forced people over recently), you can retire at 60, if you don't mind a reduction of 47%.

It's not quite the same incentive to stick it out until 60, as a full pension or 24% reduction.

Are you serious?

Would you like to try nursing? What on earth are you trying to compare it to

*34% reduction

No it's really not. I've had three 8a managers leave in the last month because the pension thing was the final straw after 2 years of being worn down, abused and treated like shit from clinical colleagues and relentless pressure to deliver more and more services, improve those services, oversee how money is being spent and constantly nagged for more and more from the national teams. They have worked 7 days a week during the pandemic, long hours since, they have done an amazing job and just when they thought that things were going to get better...our employer announces a 30-40% reduction in staff (were NHS England) and then totally mishandles the announcement and have been totally gone deaf to the impact on our staff ever since. As non clinical staff they are constantly accused (including by their own clinical colleagues) of not working hard enough, of being fat cats, lazy, over paid blah blah blah.
So they walked and I can't replace them because of the recruitment freeze which means the remaining members of my team have to work even harder, cover more services, constantly get asked about future funding (uncertain thanks to the Tories), blames for mistakes that were made by national teams, accused of being lazy, not understanding patient needs etc. Then they open a newspaper or come on here to more abuse and misunderstandings about what they actually do.
It's a shitstorm.
I'm an 8d and all the shit ends up at my feet and I'm done with it.

Isn't the starting wage for a qualified nurse just over £27k? And then obviously increases with years of experience. I don’t think a regular worker at Aldi or McDonald’s earns that. I agree with @Hobnobsandbroomstick that working conditions for nurses needs a huge overhaul. Things need to improve to prevent burnout. I can’t believe that nurses have to pay for hospital parking and don’t always get a decent lunch break!

They'll give us 4%