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.

So if nurses leave, people don't take up the profession, how much danger is that going to cause in the long term?

You should be thanking them for striking, hopefully getting a decent wage to then attract more people to the profession.

Who would go into nursing currently?

if you speak to nurses - they are leaving due to poor pay and conditions.
gosh it’s infuriating that people who don’t work in the nhs think they know more than people who do.

There is also the issue of the age distribution of the nurses and other healthcare staff. They too are getting older and the large cohort who started nursing in the late 1970's (born in the second baby boom in the late 1950's and early 1960's) are now approaching retirement age. Over 100,000 nurses are aged over 55 and will be leaving nursing in the next 5 years or so - and even though there are replacements being recruited and trained, there are too few to replace the numbers of nurses retiring.

The results of Hunt's six years as Health Secretary - during which he claimed that there was no need to increase nursing training, and during which he imposed terms, conditions and wages on the junior doctors that resulted in them leaving the NHS in droves - are clear for all to see.

That he is now the man in charge of deciding how much money should be spent on repairing the damage that he caused, not just to staffing levels but also to facilities, buildings and equipment in the NHS, just adds insult to injury.

3 years ago the whole country was shut down because the NHS would have otherwise crumbled and many more thousands would have died in the worst waves of the pandemic. It was a miserable time for everyone and seemed to go on and on….. the number of hospital beds per people in the population was compared unfavourably to all the other developed nations in the world. There weren’t enough ICU beds/staff and I worked with podiatrists and dermatology nurses who were drafted in to help in ICU. (They did their best and were great but they were obviously very limited in what they could do) It was a crazy time.
We are hopefully over the very worst of the pandemic (although the hospital I work in is still having to accommodate many more patients because of covid) but we are now dealing with a huge backlog and an aging population increasing demand.

Surely you can see that we need more staff in the NHS - both nurses and doctors and of course all the other HCPs and ancillary staff that keep such a huge organisation running. And yet the numbers show that people are not applying. People are not interested or are put off by the pay and conditions and we need to make it more attractive to people considering their future career.
of course I would like more money as I am struggling to make ends meet at the moment as are most people. But I really want to see more people attracted to a nursing career and fresh new staff and that is why I am striking.

I take it @Autumndays123 cant explain how the nurses she thinks are completely incompetent can kill people by their absence?

No she can’t @Botw1 because it is a completely illogical stance. I think she has buggered off any way.

@Donotunderestimateme

Wonder why?

😂

I don't have time to sit and argue with you all day, I have a busy job. It's quite pathetic that you're trying to draw me into an argument a day after I stopped responding to you. Attention seeking at it's finest, I suggest you get some help with why you feel the need to do that. Evidently the nurses on this thread have plenty of time to try and draw people into arguments, which is strange considering they also proclaim to not have enough time to pee in a 12h shift and work 200 hour weeks.

Anyway, I actually did explain several times that nurses are essential but that didn't mean they should be paid as much money as they want. I compared the role to other essential jobs in society that are also not very high earners, because although they provide an important service, compared to other jobs (for example, Doctors) the skills and degree necessary are not high level. That is why they are paid less than doctors. It doesn't mean they aren't needed. I really don't know how else to explain it. I've never said nurses were thick and should be forced to stay on the same money their entire career, yet this appears to be the narrative you are trying to spin for god knows what reason.

What I said, is that a pay rise is necessary but to walk out and leave very sick people in their ICU beds, or children in a&e unattended, in the name of trying to squeeze almost a 20% pay rise is morally disgusting. You keep insisting I 'go and save all these people then', but it's not a career that I chose, so your argument is pointless. It's the equivalent of a person joining the Army and then being like, "what do you mean I may have to go to war?! I'm not doing that (throws toys out of pram). I didn't know this is what the Army was like. Give me loads more money now or we aren't going to do our role and protect the country. We would rather sit and watch everything go up in smoke". Same concept. It's just blackmail and if that sits right with you and you don't see it as blackmail, it's probably because you have a different moral compass to me. That's fine, people are different. It's just quite unnerving seeing all of the supposed nurses on this thread with the same low levels of empathy and ability to watch people suffer to get what they want.

I'm not responding to you again because as I said, I'm a very busy person. Maybe if you put as much effort into your career as you doing trying to pick fights on the internet, you may progress quicker and get paid more. Just a suggestion.

@Autumndays123

Classic.

You managed to respond fine yesterday despite being a very busy person. You only stopped responding when you couldn't answer the obvious flaw in your argument. You still haven't despite all your bluster none of which is relevant or even makes sense.

Once again you're getting personal (despite knowing nothing about me or my career or my schedule) because you don't actually have an argument or even a clue.

It's 😘

It's really not my fault if you are unable to process words and sentences. Nothing in my writing is unclear, it makes perfect sense. You need to step away from this thread because as a nurse trying hard to show that nurses need to be intelligent, you are failing miserably. You've ignored all my points after tagging me and dragging me back on the thread to instead send kiss emojis like a 13 year old child.

I stopped responding last night as I had explained my point several times and you couldn't understand. I also needed to get on with some work as I have deadlines to meet. Today I'm off for a lovely day with family and don't need notifications that you've tagged me in something I left a day ago. Now please, leave me alone and don't tag me in things again or I will ask Mumsnet to step in.

Yes and as well as not answering the question @Autumndays123 couldn’t resist getting a sly dig in that our skills are not high level even though I’ve pointed out that a whole country came to a standstill because not enough people had the necessary skills to care for incredibly sick people and that they couldn’t be magicked up because it takes a long time to train an ICU nurse to have those skills.
I doubt she will be back though because she is a busy busy person.
And actually I looked into joining the army when I was newly qualified and they are quite explicit at the recruitment stage that you may be deployed to a war zone. And when my brother was deployed to said war zone he got extra pay (as he rightly should have done). He was also armed appropriately in said war zone and had the back up of the other services. However I don’t remember anyone saying to me at my recruitment stage in nursing that I may have to look after people with an unknown deadly disease without appropriate PPE (ie unarmed) for no extra pay.
This is not about covid though it is about the future of the NHS
So stop comparing apples to oranges it is a false argument.

@Autumndays123
What I said, is that a pay rise is necessary but to walk out and leave very sick people in their ICU beds, or children in a&e unattended, in the name of trying to squeeze almost a 20% pay rise is morally disgusting

The RCN have stated and made very clear on many occasions, the 19% pay demand was their opening gambit, just as the Govt's 4% should be, both sides bang their heads together and meet somewhere in the middle...

BUT in this case, the Govt wont discuss pay at all, hence the strikes... the blame you seek to put on the Nurses should be placed firmly and squarely at Sunaks door as the RCN have said they would postpone strikes if talks on pay happen...

Is that clear enough for you?

You know its not compulsory to respond to @ right?

Stop personally attacking me because you've been disagreed with and shown how wrong your views are. I could also ask Mumsnet to step in.

But unlike you, as I'm not a child, I won't run crying to mummy.

Have a lovely day.

Misunderstanding a point is not the same as recognising its flaws and contradictions.

Nurses have suffered a 20% pay cut since 2010.
Nurses are leaving and we haven't trained sufficient numbers to replace them.
Wards are not staffed properly now.
We have long waiting lists.
Health outcomes are already being impacted.

^ all of this is down to a failure is in planning & good governance.

Telling workers of any ilk that they must expect their pay to be eroded year after year only works if you have an oversupply and there are no other alternatives. Simultaneously arguing they are crucial to the nation weakens the argument that they do not deserve a pay increase. Market forces.

The Government were warned at the start of last year that the RCN would be compelled to take action on behalf of their members. Due to their incompetence, lengthy leadership shenanigans and merry go round at Number 10 they've sat on their hands.

Time for Barclay to get back round the table.

Oh @Autumndays123 , it's not about nursing pay in comparison to other professions. It's about over a decade of pay freezes devaluing nursing pay - and medical pay too, junior doctors are set to strike and consultants are balloting. I'd hope given the bunfight you've been having on here you'd know that already, but here we are.

I am not an indentured servant and I should have a right to withdraw labor. The alternative to striking is leaving the NHS to work in a private hospital for an extra 10k a year (plus 5k bonus) and leaving my ward to pay £400+ a shift in agency to replace me.

I wonder if the same arguments (medics are low skilled, lacking in intelligence, gossips, desensitised to pain and able to ignore suffering, essential but not essential enough for their pay to keep up with inflation ) will be used against doctors when they strike?

Some how I doubt it

If the government cared enough to have minimum service levels the rest of the time then I would support it, but they don't.

The minimum service levels for strikes, I think for ambulance staff, are actually higher than the standard service levels.

I feel the same about schools. Children aren't entitled to qualified staff, any warm body was allowed to be drafted in to supervise, and there was no requirement to teach the curriculum. The government COULD have shown through policy that they care about children's education, but they don't. The measures were about trying to break the strikes.

People at the top with lots of money don't want workers to be able to withdraw their labour because a united workforce across a range of sectors standing for proper working conditions and decent pay might mean some change at the top.

Thank you for all your hard work, we do appreciate it.

@Autumndays123 Could you explain to me why 5 years ago I had to look after my dc through the night when she was taken off intensive care due to a lack of beds? There was not a single empty PICU bed within 100miles, none in the midlands, none in the north west. A child post surgery on supplemental oxygen, morphine and a host of other drugs, needs to be in ICU, not being looked after by a parent who happens by viture of the child's previous medical history to have some experience of looking after a very ill child.

If my dc was in ICU on the day of the strikes I would be fully supportive of the nurses going on strike. In fact I would be encouraging them, because I know how hard they work, I know how much they deserve to have pay that at least keeps track with inflation and more than anything I know how much they have put up with the NHS being screwed over by the government to the point it is unsafe day in day out.

Doctors are more likely to be men. Nurses are mostly women....

Precisely. It’s the pay freezes over a decade that the government have chosen - leaving us far worse off than we were a decade ago. No, we didn’t sign up for that. Yes, the government is abusing its power.

@jgw1

Nurses are more likely to be women. Glad you got my point.

However doctors aren't more likely to be women

More women than men go to medical school now.

Consultants are still more likely to be men

What's the alternative then? That we consider nurses' wish to help others over rides the right to a fair and decent wage?

You d do a triple lock type deal... you know like 10.1m pensioners gte.

NHS striking isn't acceptable really BUT its in the Govt gift to sit down and talk, they are the ones driving nurses/HCP's to do this.

Tbf, doctors are almost evenly split: 186,000 men to 168,000 women.
52% to 48%.
www.statista.com/statistics/698260/registered-doctors-united-kingdom-uk-by-gender-and-specialty/