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.

Yep and a select number of people made an absolute killing out of covid…. Reading that article you can see those at the bottom end suffered the most.

Those at the top did not as they could hoard cash and there’s an argument that their spending to make up for it (or “pent up demand”) is why prices are going up, as businesses see more profit to be made.

@PuddlesPityParty

Which private sector employees are receiving 19.6% increases? The average private sector pay rise is 5% and I agree nurses should receive 7.5% (with higher for those who worked through covid).

@Stackss

I asked earlier but you didn't answer, what does working through covid have to do with increasing nurses wages now?

How would that work, legally, for the small number of nurses who didn't work through covid?

Theyre working the same shifts today as everyone else. Trying to get through the shit show the covid response (amongst other things) has created

If they had all started in the last 6 months you might have a point. But if you have started a job years ago, 20 years ago you expect the wage to keep up with inflation.

You’re citing an article in Jan 2021…. And, as I recall, they did end up closing schools because covid rates went through the roof and a lot of people died.

A lot of people died and are still dying because of covid. The government could have invested in air quality improvement measures in hospitals and schools then we wouldn’t needed lockdowns.

But hey they didn’t. (Although funnily enough they’ve got air filters in Parliament).

There may be more nurses but how does that equate to whole time equivalency? Most nurses are part time and reducing hours due to burn out. Vacancy rates are up

BT workers got a 16% pay rise, avg private sector rises are 8%.

But if you know anything at all about negotiation, you would realise both sides start at the extremes and negotiate a compromise.

How do you plan on retaining staff?

Can't believe that people think nurses are well paid. Anyone working in tech will be able to tell you that nurses are on a PITIFUL wage. You can be on well over double what a nurse is for much, much less training (and much less money for training) without being degree educated, with WFH, better hours, less responsibility and not have to watch people die. Some people seem to have absolutely no idea what the wages are in the private sector for things you don't need anywhere near the level of training for. It's an absolute scandal how much responsibility and stress we expect nurses to be under for such shit money.

(Also sometimes I think wow, what a great job the papers have done at convincing people that anything over 30k is great money. It was 15 years ago maybe but now???)

Last in hospital in October 2022.

You walk past the central desks to get anywhere on the ward. So if visiting, you see it on the way in, on the way out and if you go to speak to the nurses/to go to the canteen for whatever reason.

I'm not saying the nurses shouldn't be entitled to coffee breaks. I'm saying that the argument is often 'we are so rushed off our feet we work for 12 hours without stopping for a toilet, we must have more money '. In my experience, this is incorrect and actually there is quite a lot of down time where nurses could actually be tending to patients, but spend it gossiping and drinking coffee.

I've actually had a few family members die in hospital through quite poor care. Nurses came across as disinterested and only made any kind of fuss when the patient's family were nearby. I've actually spoken to a fair few older people in care homes, again when visiting family and friends and the message is very much, unless you have family/friends, you're pretty much ignored in hospital other than the absolute basics. Very sad. The older people used to be terrified of going to hospital because of the poor care.

What @user1471453601 said. The government should have a responsibility to staff the NHS properly but funnily enough they don't feel recruiting enough nurses enough and paying them in line with inflation / dangers of the last few years falls to a government's remit.

Minimum standards of care have been merrily dropping away since the Tories took over and now it's the fault of the too-few overworked nurses left. Can't afford a pay rise for the ones doing extra time for free or beyond basic hours to the point of being dangerous? Should have recruited enough nurses to cover the shifts.

On minimum levels of care, my DD likes it when there is a strike, more staff are in (she isn't a nurse)

350 to 500 people are dying each week because of delays in getting health care...

Vacancy rates against which target?

The target increased which means we can have more staff than previous years but a shortage

re pt they’d have to adjust for that to make it meaningful

The government’s phrase ‘minimum service levels’ is as much a smoke screen as Putin calling his war a ‘special mission’. What they both really seek to do is break down and destroy under the guise of doing good. The health care sector workers are run ragged and despondent about the service they can provide and at the same time cannot earn enough to give themselves a reasonable standard of living. These, like teachers, are professionals. They are striking out of desperation not for fun. The government ought to be ashamed. They can afford what they want to afford. Who is paying for the coronation btw? Hope that’s not the public purse.

The King's Fund report makes for interesting reading and they do reference the increase demand may be partly responsible for increased vacancy but they really emphasis the staff leaving the nhs is a major factor on the issue.

It's all very well with the previous chart saying that retirement is the number 1 reason people leave and that pay isn't even a factor. But I think that is simplifying it too much. If you take the reasons like stress, culture, workload, safety - they are all things caused by staffing levels. Pay affects staffing. Even retirement - I know so many colleagues who have retired early due to conditions and workload. But on their exit interview form they will just tick retirement as reason for leaving.

www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2022/10/nhs-nursing-workforce#:~:text=To%20try%20to%20understand%20why,out%20because%20of%20their%20work.

I’ll have a look later when more time but one thing is many sectors had people leave in their 50s during the pandemic.

There were shortages in many occupations not just here but o/s

I wasn’t really for the pandemic approach we took but one outcome is shortages in many countries

@Autumndays123

So not direct observation for a whole shift, just a snap shot? Unsuprising

Im sorry you lost family members plural as a direct result of poor nursing care that was through laziness alone. I hope you were able to raise a complaint and get some kind of resolution.

Poor standards of care are never acceptable. Unfortunately it's becoming more and more common as demand outstrips availability.

Would you do their job for that pay?

I most certainly would not. Maybe if they were paid more and there weren’t so many vacancies then there’s be fewer instances of bad outcomes.

sadly there will always be bad outcomes - statistically speaking it’s going to happen. But the chances of them happening are higher with an underpaid, demotivated and overworked set of employees. That’s basic human management.

This.

Lockdowns were to make sure we didn’t run out of ventilators and people to run them. Boris underestimated the pandemic, and didn’t take it seriously so it took hold and it was either let millions die or slow the spread.

and we seem to be heading back to the ‘well, get a better job’. If EVERYONE ‘gets a better job’ there will be no one doing the ‘not so good jobs’

It’s an entitled and arrogant view to expect someone doing a job that’s their vocation to just put up with degrading conditions of work.

How can people post here decrying people for striking to bring the professions back to where they should be, whilst yet another profiteering energy company announces record profits in the last year? THERE’S your inflation - that and business owners being unwilling to make smaller profits.

I wouldn't do their job full stop, because it's not a career path that interests me. However, that is the crux of the issue, the nurses did choose their job on the pay that they get. They made an informed decision. Now they've decided that actually, they want to be paid a lot more and they will let people die until they are. That is effectively the message and I'm sorry but it doesn't sit right with me.

That’s just a nonsense argument.

Their pay is now 19% lower in real terms than it was 10+ years ago. That’s where 19% comes from.

So their effective worth has been degraded.

There is a clear workforce crisis in the NHS. Pay and conditions is part of it.

People are dying as a result.

Should they stand by and do nothing?

How anyone can honestly continue with the argument that the government should impose minimum service levels on days when nurses are on strike...

when those minimum service levels would require significantly more staff than are currently available on non strike days...

and

The nurses are striking for pay and conditions exactly because staffing levels are currently so dangerously low?

Baffles me. Anyone else?

I know right?

And even worse are those who say nurses are deliberately letting people die when on strike, yet ignore the utter binfire we have on normal days.

Can't believe that people think nurses are well paid.

It's usually the same people who moan about how well paid striking train drivers are, but would never dream of actually doing the job themselves.

And don’t bat an eyelid at CEOs on 7 figure salaries <waits for the chorus of “but we don’t pay their salaries. Yes you fucking do if you buy their products>