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.

I worked as a dental nurse when I was young and took my dental nursing exams. The practice I worked in paid the equivalent salary today of 35k, I was earning a lot more than the other nurses in practices. They did a mixture of NHS and private work including doing full general anaesthetics with a consultant anaesthetist from the hospital a day a week, banned now due to a death in a practice in Nottingham many years ago. But yes it’s a contract between the dentist and nurse and it’s not subject to NHS banding. They also paid all overtime even if we went over by just 15 minutes and we had a morning a week where the surgery was shut for deep cleaning and admin, they took us out for a very expensive Christmas dinner every year and we used to have cakes out of petty cash once a week when I was head nurse, it became a running joke between us and the dentists, they were very decent employers, you didn’t need to be qualified back then but they only employed qualified nurses. I didn’t realise just how decent till I read this thread.

The previous practice I worked in paid a lot less and I was the only qualified nurse. I thought all dental nurses had to be qualified and registered now so assumed the pay would be better.

The consequence of a rising NMW (which is obviously a good thing) that other jobs that used to pay a reasonable premium above NMW haven't seen similar rises and now more and more people are earning that amount, even when their job requires qualifications and experience

This is why mom pay doesn’t work - especially as UC tops people up - which means employers underpay as government subsidies their biggest cost.

Il you’re clearly a bright woman as you have these qualifications and accreditation.

If the role isn’t working for you then time to build an alternative plan- perhaps working in a service industry role would be good for you for now whilst you think about what you’d like to do long term. Your children won’t be in nursery forever. What do you want to do when they’re at school?

That’s a ridiculously low wage for a necessary, skilled job. With no disrespect, my cleaner charges £17p/hr and she’s unskilled.

I've just been on indeed myself as considering a new job. Saw an advert for a dental hygienist at £27-29 p/hr. Is this something you could move into? It seems a waste of your 13 years experience to leave altogether. Have you looked at options like this?

I've noticed that thousands upon thousands of different types of jobs now hover around or just above NMW. It's pretty hard to get significantly above it.

I am also a dental nurse on £12 an hour and I get a top up of universal credit working 19 hrs a week. If I had to pay for child care I don’t think I could afford to work anymore! I have a 2 yr old & a 6 yr old in school, if I didn’t have relatives to care for my 2 yr old and pick the older one up from school I would be knackered. I feel for you! I agree we do not get paid enough for the job we do, I have a friend that works in Aldi, that doesn’t need any qualifications and doesn’t have to deal with sometimes nervous sometimes aggressive patients, that is on more than me! I’ve considered going to work with her!

I agree and working in Tesco isn't actually a particularly easy job for everyone - it's a busy environment with lots of customer interaction and/ or being on your feet all day and/ or lifting heavy boxes. It's right for some people, but some would hate it.

I worked as a receptionist in a private dental practice. It was shit. Low morale among the nurses and receptionists due to low pay ( minimum wage) and high work load. There was a conveyor belt of nurses leaving, management wouldn't do anything about it. I left during the pandemic and wouldn't go back. Retail pays more, but I've done that in the past and I can't face working with the public now. It's a scandal that jobs with your level of responsibility are so poorly paid. Especially with the prices the dentists charge.

You have to have a degree or a higher level apprenticeship to become a dental hygienist. It's 3 years training minimum. It's like saying to a care worker why don't you become a social worker - yes it's related, but it's a lot of training.

@wiseoldcat OK, I didn't realise it was such extensive training. A year I'd expect, but not 3. Fair enough, not really an option for OP right now.

It's a terrible wage for a career that you have to train in. My dd always wanted to be a dental nurse. She quit after two years. Works in an admin role for a large company now. It just wasn't sustainable once she'd decided to have a family.

I was a dental nurse and it's so underpaid. Working in a hospital pays more/ I was on more as a trainee in a dental hospital than I was qualified in a practice. The work is way less stressful, you work with loads more people so if you get an arsehole dentist it doesn't really matter and you don't have to sterilise your own instruments. It's also way more fun and relaxed. I'd deff recommend it if there's one close to you. If there isn't a dental hospital most hospitals have small dental bits attached I've worked in a couple of those.

I was working on Harley street, I was the only dental nurse for 3 very demanding people, I was also-

The receptionist/ the only receptionist as well and we had a policy that didn't let the ohone ring more than three times and there were 3 phone lines.
Lab technician- made night guards, retainers and bleaching trays...,, with no training
Radiographer taking OPG and CBCTs
Accountant- I worked out everyone's wages and sent them to the accountant every month. Had to go through every single transaction and work out their percentage

On top of doing my dental nurse duties

I was on 20K

Absolute joke, I left., stupidly after too long. got a job in a hospital, earnt more and did less.

@CocoChanellee
im sorry but you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. There are no levels of dental nurse and there is no pay scale for dental nurses in general practice. Dental practices are privately run business and it’s up to the owners of the business to set the rates of pay. To call us assistants is insulting. Many moons ago we were called dental assistants but now we are dental nurses. Qualified registered dental nurses and we are known by the GDC as DCP’s DENTAL CARE PROFESSIONALS. Take it from someone who has been a dental nurse for 36 years 😃

OP do not leave the job without having another lined up.

if you do get another job with more hours send over a message on your UC to discuss any support they can give

you are always going to be better off with children and working on UC - and just be aware expected hours have now gone up to 30.

Can you form a Union and collectively demand better pay?

That’s kind of a a good question but rather more complex than @Tatumm appears to recognise. It’s a question that needs to be directed at society at large, not just one poster having an issue right now. The problem is that such posters, by definition almost, are poor, unvalued by society as women are, and so have little agency.

We do need unions back, in a time of gross abuse of labour and low pay. We have had years of engrossment of unions, blindly and vacantly following the same rules accepted by society for the governing of business and people for the last 30 years: get bigger, amalgamate, use economies and efficiencies of scale. The issue being that economies of scale become unrepresentative and useless very quickly and efficiencies somehow fail to materialise when the purpose is lost.

There are reasons why unions have failed. Its not an easy thing to do in hostile working environments with an overwhelmingly hostile government and requires money, knowledge and resources.