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

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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.

Let me try and help you.

If last year my pay allowed me to buy 5 widgets each week, but this year my pay only means I can afford to buy 9 widgets a fortnight. Am I richer or poorer?
Is my pay worth more or less?

I think by any stretch of imagination pay failing to keep pace with inflation results in a disparity.
Particularly when it has become entrenched over the course of a decade.

But by all means continue to support spending £3 billion a year on agency staff. It's far better that cash goes towards agency companies. I'm sure owners/Tory Donors like Lord Ashcroft are very happy about that.

Dress it up how you like - we need nurses and we aren't paying enough to keep the ones we have or to entice sufficient new recruits. It doesn't take much imagination to see how that pans out for the nations health and productivity.

Because everyone else is. Soaring cost of living due to inflation isn’t affecting only nurses, but all workers.

Why should nurses be so privileged that they get bailed out from the COL crisis by the government? And why are they literally allowing patient hostages to die while striking to get this government bailout?

You don’t even know the definition of a pay rise, so your “help” is not wanted nor needed.

No, banks get bailouts. Nurses get ignored.

What anyone else has or hasn't managed to negotiate is irrelevant. Why do you think nurses should have a pay cut?

The government are indeed letting patients die because they are not prepared to fund the NHS properly. Did you read my early post on this thread about my experience when my daughter was on ICU? I will happily repost it and you can tell me if there were safe staffing levels.

As I understand it, the main religion of the Tory is Capitalism. And as I also understand it, one of the founding maxims of capitalism is 'all the market will bear'. Does this only apply when the market is on the side of the Tories, not the workers?

Am I richer or poorer if I can buy fewer widgets?

A very good question.

But by all means continue to support spending £3 billion a year on agency staff. It's far better that cash goes towards agency companies.

You know most of that cash goes towards the labour costs of hiring agency nurses.

If we supported and the government approved the 19% pay rise for nurses, this would cost £13.3 billion^. Which means zero agency staff on wards. Which means even lower staffing levels and yet more deaths.

So you see my point? A 19% pay increase isn’t going to improve patient quality of care. It will mean zero agency staff plus a £10.3bn hole in NHS finances.

^calculated from the BBC article which says each 1% increase in pay costs £700m. www.bbc.co.uk/news/63988517

Its not as simple as pay nurses more and everything will be la de da

If a pay increase for nurses did cost 13.3 billion, much of that would end up back in the treasury as nurses pay tax, but stuff that is taxed and so on.
More to the point if 13.3billion is unaffordable, then I would ask how much did Liz Truss' experiment cost? How much did Rishi Sunak waste on buying PPE that did not work from his mates?

It’s not irrelevant at all. Why do you think nurses are so special that they can be insulated from the cost of living crisis affecting everyone’s wages?

Why do you think it is ok to do to others what the government did to you?

Only shows how unaffordable yet another £13.3bn in welfare for nurses is…when they are already taking home more pay than over 50% of other workers…

@Onnabugeisha

Ive asked several times already but so far no one has answered.

Do you have any evidence that pts are at more risk of death on a strike day than a non strike day?

Also interested to know why you think this pay dispute has anything to do with COL

I take it you cannot explain why you think nurses should have a pay cut. That is the question that you need to answer, if you are to retain any credibility.

You think that the person who is responsible for keeping you alive if you are seriously injured isn't worth paying properly. May as well just pay them the minimum wage, in fact why do we pay them at all?

Well, if thousands of nurse are striking and not at work, then it’s not a stretch to conclude patients are going without care. Unless the NHS were over staffed? But everyone says and the data says there’s actually a shortage. So let’s see, making a staff shortage worse is going to cause a further decline in patient care which will cause further deaths.

why you think this pay dispute has anything to do with COL
The pay demand is literally inflation plus 5%.
Inflation is why cost of living has increased and is increasing.

So if was affordable to spaff billions on a bonkers experiment by Truss and Kwarteng, but not affordable to pay people properly. Right, makes perfect sense.

It’s not a pay cut. How can I answer a hypothetical question that is irrelevant?

I am glad that we can agree that making a staff shortage worse is a bad idea.
Why then are you insisting that nurses should have a pay cut, thus making the staff shortage worse?

It wasn’t affordable…have you seen the debt we are in and our credit rating?

Let me try simplifiying the question for you.
If last year I could afford to buy 5 widgets a week, but this year I can only buy 9 a fortnight, am I richer or poorer?

"If we supported and the government approved the 19% pay rise for nurses, this would cost £13.3 billion^. Which means zero agency staff on wards. Which means even lower staffing levels and yet more deaths. "

And it's been repeatedly pointed out and ignored by you that the RCN want to meet in the middle.

"Medacs Healthcare is providing millions of hours of agency staff to the NHS, where hiring freezes mean many trusts are unable to fill vacancies and must rely on temporary cover. Medacs is owned by the Impellam Group, a company in which Ashcroftt and his familyy own an interest.
Clarke points to TUC figures showing Medacs earns a profit of £31,9022_ per employee each year – much of which is coming from cash-strapped NHS trusts that are being forced to turn to expensive agency staff. NHS contracts have ‘rocketed’ in the past two years under the tough new budget conditions, he says."

www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2012-07-30/tory-donors-firms-landed-lucrative-government-contracts

At least the Conservative Party indirectly benefit - Ashcroft has donated in excess of £11 million.

"It wasn’t affordable…have you seen the debt we are in and our credit rating?"

Doesn't explain why pay has been eroded for a decade.

And yet you are happy to spout the lines pedalled by the same people who made the colassal mistake in the autumn with the countries finances.
Do you think that perhaps those who gambled with all our fortunes in the autumn should be held to account? Or should they be allowed to continue making a mess of the country?