Do you think this fair, blue light discount?

[MrsWaltonGoggins]

I tried to use my blue light card in a restaurant today, and they say they only accept it now if you have an nhs or military id. They said this is because they have teachers using the blue light and they believe it should be for healthcare workers only. I said that I am a nurse, I just don’t work for the nhs and don’t really think that’s fair.

Has anyone else come across this? Surely if you offer blue light discount it should be for anyone with a blue light card.

Yes I saw your post however we have staff nurses whom although are employed by the council they have both council and nhs trust email addresses as they are integrated (intermediate care).

In which case the retailer getting upset about “no public benefit” have failed to read the terms and conditions when signing up to the Blue Light Discount card scheme - and are failing to fulfill the contract that they signed up to in jointing the discount scheme as a retailer

This asking for ID nonsense is the reason why we only use our BL cards for online purchases now.

I'm a teacher, and personally, I think it should be for the NHS, Police, and Armed Forces.

I saw a new housing estate being built offering blue light discounts recently. Totally put me off buying there as I think the system is grossly unfair. Many low paid key workers don't get it but high paid non key workers do.

DH has one as he works for the Home Office.
if they offer the discount then they need to honour it for all those who hold it!

I tried to use the BLC in Nando's recently and was asked for my work ID. Given that is a warrant card I had to decline. My force has a strict (and correct imo) policy that under no circs are you allowed to show your warrant card in order to get a discount/favour/whatever. It looks TERRIBLE to anyone looking on. More businesses now do this, and ironically it means that it puts those who spend the most time speeding into danger under a blue light out of eligibility for the scheme.

Nando’s doesn’t accept BLC:

We do not have an official partnership with the Blue Light Card and as such, the card is not accepted in line with the requirements of our NHS or Emergency Service Discount offer.

To receive your 20% Emergency services discount for Eat-in or walk-in collection, when placing your order at the till please show the cashier your ID with the official Police, Fire, Ambulance Service, or Military logo. The discount will be applied to the cardholder's order, up to an order value of £20, which gives a maximum £4 discount and can only be used once a day.

I think it should be called something else rather than blue light to avoid confusion and resentment. To me, blue light means firemen/women, police and paramedics. I think teachers, drs, nurses and soldiers are very much deserving of the discount but i wouldn't consider them to be "blue light". I also wonder whether highly paid civil servants should be getting it as it's not like they need it and their jobs aren't exactly dangerous or heroic either (although of course they need doing). Maybe the solution is to call it a keyworker discount and have it means tested.

I am a civil servant in the Probation Service and very much not highly paid (less than £30k). I face groups of high risk offenders daily whilst running rehabilitation programmes with them. They can and do get aggressive.

Deichmann offer Blue Light only fior NHS too.

So sorry, i didn't realise your job would be a civil servant, i thought you would be part of the police. I was talking about the ones who don't do anything remotely dangerous, earn £70k+ and already have a lot of perks that come with the job.

It most definitely makes a mockery of the reason it was introduced. So many members of staff in my school, not in people facing roles, have one. The average salary for teachers in secondary is pushing 50k, why do we deserve it.

It seemed to be emergency during the pandemic!

But they only opened it up to teachers in 2024! Would have made more sense if they had been first included when schools were closed.

You're not kidding!

I do think it should at least be non-transferable, i.e. my solicitor friend shouldn't be using her DH's NHS card (non clinical or frontline) to buy shoes.

@Yomummy77

It most definitely makes a mockery of the reason it was introduced.

The Blue Light discount scheme is a commercial discount scheme, the reason it was introduced was to make money by selling subscriptions to a discount scheme.

Teachers weren't key workers on the original government list 🙄

They were added quite swiftly once it was realised that it would be difficult to operate the scheme without them.

I’m part of the MoJ. Once they’ve been arrested and charged, they go to court and become ours to manage.

While I agree that the name 'blue light' is misleading, it's always been the case that public sector workers have been offered discounts because it's a large group of workers so commercially viable to businesses.

Means testing is a blunt tool that is expensive to implement. You could restrict eligibility to pay band, but that doesn't necessarily correlate with the 'need' for a discount. You could have a low paid person who is child free, mortgage free and has a high earning partner so has a far higher disposable income than someone on a higher grade who has DC and a SAHP.

But I disagree about 'highly paid civil servants jobs being not exactly dangerous or heroic'. While I'd never claim to be on the same level as fire, police and ambulance, I do have a front line role in a very niche area of emergency planning for a Category 1 emergency responder and in the times when I've been out in the field, exposed to the hazard, the general public have been cowering in their homes 'terrified' of what is happening.

The other reality is that recruitment and retention difficulties are endemic across the public service because pay is poor in professional roles and a lot of support staff are on NMW or not much more, so any little extra bonus like a discount card is a small little extra to make staff feel valued. There's always plenty of vacancies to apply for, for anyone who feels like they're missing out.

I’m a teacher but have never once thought to ask about this discount in restaurants. Do you need to apply for a blue light ID? My council ID doesn’t specifically state my job, though the name of my school is printed on the lanyard!

You need the card to get the discount. You have to apply through a dedicated portal that validates your eligibility by picking your employer and using your work email address.

What about Teaching Assistants on minimum wage? They get it and rightly so.

@JMSA
The ‘Blue Light Discount card’ is a commercial discount scheme,it has an eligibility list and anyone who can show one of the criteria can sign up to the website and buy the discount card.
The ‘Defence Discount card’ is run by the same organisation, originally they were almost identical other than a different logo, just bringing over MoD eligibility and adding some additional MoD eligibility. Over the years there have become some differences such as businesses being able to choose to join one or both schemes

www.bluelightcard.co.uk

www.defencediscountservice.co.uk

There is nothing special about being for heroes or the underpaid - they are commercial discount schemes providing an advertising outlet to participating businesses seeking potential customers from large groups of people