To this this wage is far too low?

[thirtytalking]

I work as a dental nurse. Have to pay £55 a day childcare, have to pay £120 a year subscription to the GCC, and £40 a year for a CPD programme. It's hard, stressful work.

I get £11.20 an hour. I thought that was bad. Talking to others who have been there longer, they don't even earn that. Some have done extra courses and have other duties and have been refused a pay rise.

I worked in pubs and came home with more. I claim UC and the pay is so low (I only do a few days) it's triggered a back to work meeting. In my last job there was no stress, I didn't have to be qualified or pay anything.. I just served a few drinks and came home with more money. It's a joke.

According to Gov.Uk, the range of salary is £23K - £35K pa depending on experience.

Where on the scale are you?

Is your experience not being taken into account @thirtytalking

I'm pretty sure you posted about this a few weeks ago and the fact that the other dental nurses are horrible. So you don't even like your colleagues. I don't think there's much reason to stay at this point.

Most (all?) dental practices are private now, so if you look elsewhere you may find one that offers a better rate of pay? Don’t let them screw you over, I bet the patients are charged phenomenal amounts of money. More of it should be coming to you!

Do you have a union or anyone in the industry that can advise you? What is the broader picture for your industry? It seems a pity to give up something skilled without exploring the options within that industry.

Given that private dentistry is so expensive for individuals, maybe some practices pay better. Or on the other hand, maybe most are now owned by venture capital companies that scoop up the fat profits and pay staff miserable wages. ….Worthy of journalistic investigation actually!

Or on the other hand, maybe most are now owned by venture capital companies that scoop up the fat profits and pay staff miserable wages.

LOL there isn't enough money in dentistry for venture capital.

Most of the dentists where I live are private. They are owned solely by the dentist and mine is run by a family who opened it years ago.

I don't understand why the OP is on the bottom of the salary band.
There IS a band as it's listed as such on Gov.uk
Either her experience isn't being taken into account or she's not updated her training, or she's accepted a low band.

Any ideas @thirtytalking ?

This is the info from the NHS website on pay @thirtytalking You sound underpaid and need to talk to your employer, while you look for another job. If you have 8 years' experience you should earn the higher salary here.

Band 4
< 3 years' experience £25,147
3+ years £27,596
Examples of roles at band 4 - assistant practitioner, audio visual technician, pharmacy technician, dental nurse and theatre support worker.

That's not a salary band on gov.uk, just an indication of average pay. Dental nursing in hospitals, or other large public sector employers like the military will pay banded salaries, but the vast majority of dentists are small businesses who are free to set pay and conditions how they like, as long as they comply with statutory requirements.

I don’t think she is including childcare, she is just setting the scene.

I think all of this sounds unsustainable. I’m sorry the pay is so low, that is really tough. It’s amazing how little some organisations pay and how they expect people to live on that. If you’re not getting anything out of it, I’d recommend you leave as financially it doesn’t work and you’re not enjoying it.

good luck in whatever you decide, it’s really tough.

I was a dental nurse for a couple of years after leaving school. It was low paid because it wasn't really a qualified role as such. Yes, you could do further courses but they weren't essential and the courses that you did do were very basic ie how to sterilise equipment etc. It was a mix of admin stuff and preparing the equipment that the dentist would need, infection control etc. The majority of work is NMW in private dental surgeries. Its not really on the same level of a nurse or other AHP, I think the name of dental 'nurse' is a little misleading. I mean no disrespect with that, as I say, I did the role myself.

OP if you're keen to progress career wise, there are degree level qualifications such as in oral health etc. An NHS dental nurse is quite different from a dental 'nurse' in private practice; you do get some who have gone through further education but they would work in roles in dental hospitals etc carrying out more complex duties. Perhaps have a look at qualifications that you could do (if its something that you wanted to progress in), it would give you a much wider scope of practice and obviously a better wage.

She claims UC, you are required to work a certain amount of hours or earn a certain amount to claim otherwise they make you look for more work.

I had no idea that dental nursing was so badly paid (I've looked at the pay rates for dental nurses in my area and they seem to top out at around £12ph, which is appalling for an expensive area in the SE), and I think it's an absolute disgrace. I know people with no qualifications working as carers and support workers who are earning more than that, and that sort of work is notoriously badly paid.

Is there a hospital near you with a dentistry department, OP? The pay might be better, and the pension and other conditions definitely would.

With regard to your UC, it's more to do with the money than the hours you work. When your youngest is 3 or 4, they will expect you to earn the equivalent of 16 hours x NMW, at ages 5-12, this rises to 25 hours. If your pay is below these thresholds, they will expect you to look for more hours or a job with better pay. Getting a better paid job would get them off your case without you working more hours.

I work as a supply teaching assistant. It's a bit more money than if I had a contract although obviously it's a term time job. I like it though because I don't get sucked into any politics and I am free to accept or decline the work, of which there is plenty!

I think it's really wrong in this country that even a full time job on minimum wage isn't enough to live on for a single parent with bills/mortgage or whatever.

(Edited to say I don't think you said you were a single parent, but I am!)

It's really shockingly low paid for a professional job/qualification. I was aware of this as my son was considering an apprenticeship instead of uni and when he was looking to see what the options were there were LOADS of dental nursing apprenticeships. But when we looked into what a full time salary would be after qualifying it would have been £17k.

When I was at uni we were told to aim for £15k as a first starting salary and that was nearly 30 years ago!

There seems to be hardly any NHS dentists now and the appointments aren't cheap so I'm surprised dental nurse salaries haven't gone up more.

I think it's really wrong in this country that even a full time job on minimum wage isn't enough to live on for a single parent with bills/mortgage or whatever

But how would that work? To earn enough as a single parent in a high cost area to pay for housing, childcare, bills, food might mean you'd need about £5k+ pm coming in, which is a salary of well over £100k pa for someone with a student loan and pension contributions of 5% of their salary.

If we started paying everyone £100k pa, then everything would get a lot more expensive and suddenly even £100k wouldn't be enough.

Or if you have a partner or don't have childcare bills you could afford to work for less so who would employ a single parent who needs to earn over £100k pa when others would be happy to be paid half that because their essential expenses are lower and they have a partner?

Topping up wages with UC according to differences in essential costs targets help towards those who need it, but that's a separate issue from the OPs problem, which is mainly that her hourly rate has likely stagnated compared with the increased NMW so now isn't seeing pay matching the experience and qualifications required, as well as feeling the squeeze in living costs.

So I would see if you can do your job at another practice with a higher salary. You might be able to ask for a pay rise where you are. I think you have options but it’s terrible your pay is so low.

The salary came from this NHS site, which I assume shows the pay scales.

https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/working-health/working-nhs/nhs-pay-and-benefits/agenda-change-pay-rates

The title of 'nurse' is slightly misleading as it's not the same as a nurse in the NHS where you are a graduate.

For someone with very little beyond the basic training, it's not a terrible salary.

The issue with the OP is she only wants to work 15 hours.

The pay of dental nurses boils my blood. I work in dentistry and often see the dentists taking in £20k in a month - that’s what their nurses earn in a year, and they wouldn’t be able to do their job without them half the time!

My friend is a retired veterinary nurse and hydrotherapist with all the required training, she earned more from a cleaning job but stuck with the nursing as she loved the job. She's now working part time in her village shop and loving every minute.
Life's too shirt and your boss is seriously taking the piss when you consider what dentists charge,let's be honest here they all do mostly highly lucrative private work so can afford to pay better.

HCA at hospital would get £11.45

This. It's completely ridiculous. I actually can't believe what dental nurses get paid, given what they have to do/know/experience. The job market in this country disgusts me.

I wish people would start saying no. Literally just walk out of all these jobs and get a job requiring no experience or skill instead and see what happens to these employers then. No men would work for these wages. It's always women!! So sick of it.

When I left school I worked as a dental nurse. This was the late eighties/early nineties. The pay was crap then, but if I was called in for an emergency I was paid £30 a patient, so the fact you’re getting £20 is taking the piss.

The practice I worked for insisted we were qualified, which wasn’t a requirement back then, like it is now, so our pay reflected that once we passed our exams. It, also, meant that we could progress on to working in hospitals and the community where, again, pay is better. I qualified and went straight into the hospital setting which I enjoyed more.

@CocoChanellee i don’t know why you’re being so goady because you don’t know what you’re talking about. There are absolutely no pay bands for dental nurses within dental practices. As long as they’re being paid the NMW, or above, the dentist can pay what they like. The pay bands are for hospitals, the community and MOD settings, ie those dental nurses paid by the government.

Is that the norm in dentistry, or is your employer particularly mean? Given what dentists charge, it does seem very low. Have you looked around at what other practices pay?

In other professions where you have to do CPD and pay professional subscriptions, the employer pays. I'm surprised yours doesn't.

The hourly rate based on the link I left earlier, is £14phr (on the basis of 37.5 hr week x 52 weeks.)

There are various levels of dental nurses.
The basic level does not require much training and it's not the same as a nurse who qualified through 3 years at uni.

It all depends on the OP's training.

Some dental nurses are 'assistants'.

@TheFairyCaravan Goady? Eh?

I'm posting from NHS websites.
If you know otherwise, that's all well and good. Thanks so much for informing me.