AIBU to think a potential 2% pay rise for the NHS staff is ridiculous?

[Sunflowers68]

NHS England is cautioning against giving employees raises of more than 2%. is A band 2 salary is now only 10p above minimum wage due to the recent increase in the minimum wage. Surely, a 2% increase is insufficient for a job this challenging? If you are still working in the NHS, can you share your reasons why?

You are assuming that people applying are thinking about pensions. We can’t hire band 2s at the moment. They can get better pay doing unskilled jobs elsewhere. So where we used to get 20+ applicants for a job we’re now lucky if we get one or two. Luckier still if those are actually employable.

Reasons for working for NHS Vs private sector

1. Pension

1. Sick pay, you can pretty much have the 6 months off and not worry

1. Maternity. Most people have a year off no questions asked. Yes only full pay for 8 weeks, then half pay, but your job will be there when you come back absolutely no question.

1. Flexibility..if you ask to go part time, it's extremely likely you will be allowed. They are very family friendly and will accommodate most requests.

1. Opportunity. There are always other roles coming up. If you already work for the NHS you have a foot in. I've known people come in as a band 2 and progress to band 5 through promotions and apprentice schemes etc.

1. Funded training courses. See above. Plenty of opportunities for additional training, paid for.

1. Job satisfaction. Yep it's bloody hard work absolutely. But on days where you've helped lots of people in need, you've achieved something worthwhile.

I could do a post with all the points AGAINST it too but that wouldn't be as long.

I have gone from band 2 to a 5 and am now looking at a 6. Non clinical role too

I agree with all of the NHS posters before. It absolutely should be more and band 2s are worth their wage and significantly more.

Because of paperwork and red tape I would say band 2s do so much patient care and are pretty much the front door for any deterioration ect.

I'm now part of the group which would be paid 8k more if I worked in Scotland or about 10k plus going private. Options for progression are extremely limited (only 1 position above my banding in my hospital for the role I'm in, similar around the country) and again only really with a masters (which I can't afford to do part time hours with current wage and 3 children).

I also personally don't know anyone who voted 'yes' to the pay deal last time so it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.

I'm a band 2 on a complex geriatric ward - I do observations (BP, temp etc) basic wound care as well as personal care, repositioning, feeding etc we also have to record all of this on the (electronic) patients notes.

The nurses and drs don't spend enough time with the patients to know what is normal for them, or whether they are deteriorating - that's on us to alert medical staff.

The job is emotionally draining and physically demanding. Our patients generally have some type of cognitive impairment, confusion or safeguarding issues, some are end of life. It's a fraught environment with the patients requiring constant supervision.

To become band 3 I need to become competent in, venepuncture (taking blood)bladder scans and ECG's which I hope to do later this year.

People assume it's just wiping bums at band 2 - it's much more than that, we have a lot of responsibility.

This is exactly why staff feel put out. Because we aren't all in it together.

We stay because we belive in public services.

We couldn’t cope without our band 2s but honestly I wouldn’t blame them for leaving. I couldn’t/wouldn’t do it. I don’t think many people would.

Without band 2s many teams will fall apart, they honestly don’t get enough credit.

Most of ours stay because that’s all they’ve ever known, it’s all that’s available to them locally and through fear of it’s that or nothing. They also love their job and take pride in what they do.

We were discussing this on Friday at work. The govt is determined to punish the NHS and has already raided any underspend left (its only underspend because the fuckers make it so difficult for us to recruit or do any of the service improvement work we need to desperately do).
They also like the narrative of withholding money from non clinical staff supposedly for clinical staff...except what actually happens is that the non clinical staff are the backbone of the NHS and make our jobs a lot easier. Same with the narrative about managers all being useless...they aren't, they are just restricted in what they are able to do like the rest of us due to this govt treating the NHS and all its staff like shit for 13 years.
Sorry for the rant, just had a bad day on Friday when our divisional manager almost quit her job due to the abuse that she keeps getting from patients and lower band staff.

I've just had my request to drop 3 hours a week refused. It's not flexible for all.

Did you read my post about the minimal difference in take home pay with these gross figures between Scotland and England? You would be nowhere near 8k better off.

Many of my colleagues on lower bands aren’t even in the pension as they can’t afford to be!!

I have friends on band 8a-d who have had to,leave the pension scheme too as they couldn't afford to lose over £400 a month in contributions. Most of them joined the NHS in the last few years, or have been in and out for years, so are coming in after the schemes were changed.

It's only worthwhile having an NHS pension now if you go in when you are young, never leave and get to the higher bands quickly.

I work in the NHS - with my qualification and skill set (and recruitment shortages out the wazoo for SALTs) I could easily move across into private sector work within a different area of SLT. I don't want to - because my particular client group aren't likely to be able to access private therapy and I love the client group I work with; plus I'm in an incredible team, led by a head of service who takes absolutely no shite and believes in trying to keep good staff and offer them progression within the service - but we're fighting the battle against posts being down-banded constantly along with really tough recruitment situations - and the complexity of clients I was dealing with as a fresh B5 would have scared a lot of people away.

If it wasn't for how good my management and colleagues are - I would have possibly jumped across into private work once my NQP status was signed off - but as it is I'm happy enough with where I work. Plus our admin staff are absolutely fab.

Sorry I can only speak for my own and my colleagues experiences and have to admit I haven't tried dropping by a few hours but I have gone from 5 days p/w to 2 days p/w to support family needs, no problems. The hours worked on a given day remain the same as they are the needs of the service so I imagine there has to be some limitations but there are a lot of jobs where if you requested to go part time it would not be good for your career. In the NHS there are senior staff and managers who are part time/job share etc.

Forgot to add to my original post there are also LOTS of opportunities for extra hours if you need it. There aren't many clinical staff who just work their contracted hours and that's it. Often I'm the lead up to Xmas I will pick up extra hours to pay for Xmas presents etc.

Just because this is my pet peeve..

1. Out of hospital - you can’t buy larger pack sizes of paracetamol OTC and you are restricted in the number of packs you can buy so people with long term pain conditions will often get prescriptions to enable them to get larger pack sizes.
2. In hospital the cost to the hospital of a pack of paracetamol is considerably less than 30p so I doubt the giving a £1 would actually save money.
3. The cost of paracetamol to the NHS includes all formulations. I doubt it’s the tablets driving most of the cost (see point 2). It’s likely the IVs. Not prescribing these would likely lead to prescribing different more expensive drugs by IV.

I didn't but I haven't looked that closely into it because I have no realistic prospect of actually moving to Scotland.

Rightly or wrongly the discrepancy is coming up all the time and breeding resentment and feeding undervalued.

I don't see NHS staff as any more or less deserving than anybody else doing any other job.

Inflation is forecast to settle down to 2% in the near future so it stands to reason that future pay awards will be in this region.

Many people work in physically and mentally demanding jobs for minimum wage or thereabouts. But without the pension, the sick leave, the higher holiday allowance and the ridiculous level of job security as it seems nigh on impossible to be sacked.

Another public sector worker here. I'll be watching with interest as our pay rise mirrors NHS/teachers.
Ironically these areas are understaffed and difficult to work in due to long shifts, dealing with public in difficult circumstances, lots of responsibility and stress, it's no wonder they struggle to recruit and retain when the pay doesn't match the work.
My pension is OK, but wait...... yes I have to work the above conditions on shit comparative pay for many years to get there yay!

Band 2s are low paid but so are so many other jobs in private sector without the benefits, pensions, sick pay, holiday, security and availability of part-time hours than the NHS offers.

It's a wider problem than just NHS.

Pensions again. I'd really know what pension someone would get if they started in a band 2 role, maybe even part time, if they worked from 45 to state pension age. It really wouldn't be that great I suspect. And that's if they could afford to pay the contributions an hadn't stopped paying because they couldn't afford to.

Our band 2's, who literally keep our A&E running (health cares, porters, receptionists, waste etc) now cant even pay for their parking permits direct from their pay as it a salary sacrifice scheme that would being their take home pay under NMW which excludes them from the scheme. There's no other means of buying an onsite permit, which now means they have to spend more on daily parking tickets or park further away and walk in and out of site after their 12.5 hour shifts. A 2% rise would not bring their pay up high enough to allow for them to have a permit. These members of staff are absolutely vital to the running of the entire hospital.

Add this to the CoL crisis, we will lose this essential members of the work force. A "seemingly" good pension will not keep these staff members in the role now, as they can earn much more elsewhere. And they are absolutely vital, i cannot stress that enough.

But this thread is specifically about NHS staff. The stress, workload conditions and responsibility of working for the NHS is not the same as other jobs. The private sector does NOT have the same amount of stress or workload.

The fact is we pay 42% income tax above 43k, and 21% over 26k, which goes some way to justify the need for higher wages per band. I bet people don't take that into account when they're feeling this resentment.

Defined benefit and much better than someone who worked in a minimum wage job in private sector I suspect.

Employer contributions
Private sector 3%
NHS 23.7%

The 3% is minimum but this is what lots of small businesses contribute.

This is crazy. These are the unforeseen consequences of all these initiatives that will supposedly make life better for lower paid workers.

I left a better paid job in retail which had paid breaks, a good pension, profit share and similar holiday/sick pay policy, is was more flexible too tbh (would like Thursday as a set day off NHS says no) I wanted a change and thought there would be scope for progression from band 2 but it's been painfully slow training wise.

i enjoy my role, am glad to be out of the corporate rat race but the idea that the NHS offers benefits that the private sector won't match just doesn't hold up.