To say the government is right to impose minimum service levels on nurses

[Stackss]

So today the nursing unions have announced they will be withdrawing from A&Es, intensive care units, chemotherapy and other key services. Now, I am not a conservative voter by any means and I do think nurses should get a fair pay rise (although I don’t think 10% is affordable).

However, I don’t think it is acceptable for unions to be putting lives at risk by refusing to provide life-saving care. The armed forces and prison officers are not allowed to strike- I would now support minimum service levels being extended to nurses to prevent the unions doing this.

I suspect I am not the only one and the unions need to be careful not to shoot themselves in the foot.

Exactly. We only have crappy nursing degrees after all and can be replaced at the drop of a hat 😆

Then how do we get better and safer care for our patients?

If we don't take action now things will continue to get worse and how many hundreds of thousands of patients will suffer over how many years?

The answer isn't to put up and shut up. It hasn't worked for so long as things have deteriorated and until you are the one faced with shocking stuff levels and having to spread the nurses you do have within a hospital so thin you go home not knowing how they will cope or how the patients will get any kind of acceptable care you just won't get it.

@Icedlatteplease

I take it you don't have any evidence that the risk of harm to patients is worse on strike days than on non strike days?

YABU. Take away the right to fight for better conditions and pay, and watch as the NHS crumbles instead.
I work in a completely different sector, have recently hired a (very skilled in a specific treatment area) ex-NHS worker, and they are applying in droves. This person told me their NHS role was their dream job, but they simply couldn't hack it anymore due to rubbish pay and conditions, and that most colleagues were job hunting if they hadn't already jumped ship.

We will soon be without them if you restrict their rights to strike, etc. They'll simply leave and look elsewhere.

So scotland have proposed a rise for the staff in Scotland and given they are already on more than those working in NHS England. Benefits getting 10% so why is RIshi making feeble excuses

Agreed. It's meaningless and a distraction.

@Icedlatteplease - I fear you missed the point. We aren't staffing the NHS appropriately now. It is having an impact on patient care now. We are losing nurses. We have not recruited enough nurses.

Making their pay & conditions the best we can will stem some of that loss/failure and correspondingly improve patient care.

If you care about patients beyond strike day you will care about that.

Slice it any which you want the Government have failed at NHS workforce planning - and they have been warned for years.

@Autumndays123

"Finally, although I appreciate nurses work long hours (as was understood when they chose the career)".

Nope when I started my related HCP job, it was 9-5, Mon -Fri with a couple of staff covering emergencies in the evenings and a couple of others, nights. Weekends were rota'ed; you worked 1:9 weekends, surrounded by British trained staff.

Now it's 24/7, 13 hour shifts, 1 weekend in 5 OFF, 80% overseas trained staff.

Oh, and back then, a PRB whose recommendations were adhered to by government.

So don't me any of the 'you knew what you signed up for' BS.

The cross-party Health and Social Care Committee, chaired by Mr Hunt, found services in England face “the greatest workforce crisis in their history” and the Government has no credible strategy to improve the situation.
July 2022.

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/nhs-workforce-crisis-staff-shortage-health-social-care-committee-b1014398.html

Brilliant 🤩

I'm sure you would sooner see conscription. I'd like to see negative calorie cake, but life's a cunt sometimes.

It would be anyone on an agenda for change contract though, not just nurses. Tbh, I think that nurses/AHPs etc should have their own pay scale (like doctors) but for now they don’t. Not saying the payrise isn’t deserved but that’s the reality.

By way of illustration.

Before covid DD was in intensive care following life saving surgery. Early Friday evening the bed manager comes passed for a chat. DD is the most well patient in ITU. The nearest available peadiactric ITU bed is over 100 miles away, there is not a single available bed in the Midlands or North West. DD is sedated on morphine and the rest, but on minimal oxygen and not ventilated and real time monitoring (thanks Maclaren F1 for the telemetry).

2am Saturday morning, phone rings. ITU doctor there, thet are moving DD onto the ward, can I come up and be with her. (aka we have run out of nurses, we know you well enough because you have been here a while that you will probably manage to look after her until morning). Never mind that her breathing is laboured and somewhat intermittent, that her blood oxgyen is sufficintly low that you or I would not be functioning.

I will not say what I think of anyone who thinks that safe staffing levels or the lack of them are anything to do with nurses going on strike. There is only one group of people responsible, they are well paid by the taxpayer, but spend most of the year on recess and their time on lining their pockets not helping people.

Why is Rishi making feeble excuses?

To easy, because he is feeble.

@Botw1

Re: Your response to Autumndays123 which was:

'And again, I will ask you to explain how you think a low skilled, lacking in intellegence and education nurse can do anything about an imaginary child bleeding to death in an ED?'

Bravo. In one.

No one who has been lucky enough to put an NG tube into their young child thinks that nursing is unskilled.

@Autumndays123

"Nurses are losing support. Fast."

Evidence? I see massive support for them.

I think they accidentally switched Tory party for nurses.

It's 59% to 41% on this thread. I'm not sure that's representative of massive support. Essentially that's for everyone that does support you there will someone who doesn't.

I heard that when it gets to under 50% on this thread they'll call off the strike.

@CrinkleCutChips

"It would be anyone on an agenda for change contract though, not just nurses. Tbh, I think that nurses/AHPs etc should have their own pay scale (like doctors) but for now they don’t. Not saying the payrise isn’t deserved but that’s the reality."

Maybe the government of the day should have considered this before 'simplifying' NHS workers' pay in 2004. You get quite astounding differences in responsibility across the NHS on the same pay band, esp 5/6.

That's it really. People are saying that if you choose to be a nurse then you have given up on any expectation of being able to house and feed your family because that has to come below your duty to your patients, whatever the cost to you. And now we are going to enshrine that in law. You have to make the sacrifice while we enrich others and save a bit on income tax. But the impact on patients is all our fault for accepting this. Why do nurses have to take all the moral ctitism. Sorry, I forgot, they chose to be a nurse. And when nobody chooses this or there are not enough to provide basic care. Who do we create service agreements with then.
Or we have to pay nurses their real worth which is far far more than 10 perc more than the cost now. Nurses dedication and willingness to take up slack already keeps their cost way down. If we valued them the same as in other Countries like Australia or USA then 10 perc would look like chicken feed. And if they all go then we will have to eventually value them at those levels or have non and then people will die.
See if you then think 10 perc in today's inflation is costly if we get to that stage.

🤣🤣🤣

In some circles, 59% would be considered a landslide majority....

If Brexit hadn't happened we wouldn't now be having to hire quite so many dubiously trained, limited English speaking overseas staff in an attempt to plug the holes.

@Icedlatteplease "So the only thing nurses care about are they're nurses their unions?
They was me thinking that the most important person a nurse should care about is their patients...."

The most important people that nurses should be caring about are themselves and their families. A nurse who is burned out, working long hours under stress and suffering mental and physical health issues as a result is a danger to patients and is putting their own health and the well-being of themselves and their family at risk. Add in the issue that many are barely making enough money to feed clothe and house their families and the stress only multiplies.

Lorry drivers have restricted hours, with minimum, strictly enforced rest periods because a mistake due to tiredness or burn-out on their part could have catastrophic results. But doctors and nurses working 12 hours or more at a time, with no breaks? The government (and some posters on here) seemingly see this as no problem for these self-sacrificing super-humans, who are supposed to be a cross between Superwoman and Florence Nightingale (other genders available).

Nursing degrees are not notoriously difficult and the required level of 'skill' is pretty low

can I point out that from an academic standards point of view a nursing degree has to be as rigorous as any other degree? They’re not allowed to NOT be. They have the same number of credits as any other degree and for the theory part of the course the same standards will apply for an assessment as for any other degree.