Strikes: Anyone else think this country is screwed financially?

[TulipsandButterflies]

Watching the news about the RCN rejection of the NHS pay offer for nurses. Of course it has been rejected. The cost of living is continuing to rise and nurses, and other NHS staff, are leaving in droves due to crap pay and big workloads. I am NHS but in another profession (we are watching carefully what happens with this). I am doing the work of 3 and under immense pressure at work (although it wasn’t as bad as this in my previous roles a few years ago). I’ve just been told my blood pressure is higher than it should be which has really worried me so I have started looking elsewhere for work (I started in the NHS in 1996).

Junior docs are also striking. Teachers and others too!

With the cost of living continuing to rise, people will start to struggle…especially those with a young family or people who are single.

What can be done? Raise national insurance? Raise tax? Something has to happen. I admire nurses for taking a stand. They aren’t just striking for a decent pay rise but also for safer staffing levels. A lot of NHS staff will be struggling with their own health. This has to be addressed.

And, what happens with the NHS pay rise of Unison members have accepted it but the RCN has rejected it?

I think the country is messed up and it’s worrying!

I work with the elderly doing benefit checks, disability forms etc. i'm absolutely shocked at what a lot of them get as well as owning their own homes. Obviously there are some struggling, usually because they are not claiming what they can.

Sorry I meant to say shocked at the amounts of pensions, private pensions etc.

We are going through a 20% drop in living standards as things stand so naturally everyone is after a pay rise. The trouble is if wages chase prices then inflation will continue and the poorest are disproportionately affected by inflation, I am not sure what the answer is.
I would lay the blame at the B.O.E for not spotting the risk earlier and leaving interest rates at zero for years to long, asset inflation has leaked into the real economy and the longer the inflation hangs around the harder it is to bring under control.
Also the pandemic spending by the government was out of control. The more money that is created the less it is worth, and we created alot of money during the pandemic as did most developed countries.

I do wonder what effect quantitative easing had

I mean you can't print money without consequences right?

Yup!

I’ve never voted Tory. Never will.

I agree. Money always seems to be available for the right people - especially when the Tories are holding the purse strings!

I wonder how much it would cost each person to give the NHS the funding it needed. I’m presuming working age people would fund it - how much would
it raise if everyone paid £10 a month (or am I just being daft)? It’s a bit like a health insurance policy really.

But Unison members didn't strike, the only union who's members voted for strike action, stood on the picket line and lost days pay were RCN members.

Accepting the pay deal is reactive, it doesn't look at the long term
Issues of recruitment and retention < these are the issues for the NHS staff, and sadly money makes the world go round.

There is a gap of £25 billion between taxes on earned and unearned income, i.e investment earnings, look at Sunak's 20% CGT's on his investment earnings instead of 45% any one on PAYE would have to pay.

Or an investment landlord selling a house they bought 20 years and paying just CGT (20%) on the huge increase in value.

So fix some of that gap, which wouldn't effect the vast majority and you have £25bn to spend on public service pay to help fix retention.

Because for all the Govts rhetoric on inflation blah blah blah (funny how countries who pay medical staff more have lower inflation!) no staff means No NHS or Education and guesss who that effects? and it wont be Barclay, Hunt or Sunak.

I’m a band 7 but have worked my way up from a 5 (entry level after I left uni). I’ve been a 7 at another trust. The trust I’m at now pays staff at a lower band than what other trusts do. I’m doing the work of a band 8 with a lot more responsibility than I should have. The band 8 in post is constantly on long term sick (I’ve only been in the post 2.5 years) but regularly puts staff on band 2 or 3 when they should be a 4 for the work they are doing. Another trust pays staff band 4 for exactly the same job description!!

I think this is rife in the NHS as leaders battle to save money. And then they wonder why so many people leave the NHS. I am looking elsewhere now!

This is exactly what I don't understand. If there is no money, and we've been told that for years and years before covid, where on earth did the £billions come from for test and trace and the PPE scandal? I just don't get it at all. Either they were lying and there actually is money or they were telling the truth and have sent us up the creek to give money to their mates. How can they get away with treating us so badly?

Oh, and our trust has been put into the ‘needs improvement’ category and the Chief Executive has resigned.

Asset stripping is right. The billions wasted on covid fraud and PPE alone! It is staggering. Just 1 of those billions would settle the NHS pay dispute but now we can't afford it. It's a massive scandal. Crony capitalism at its finest. This country is just full of rentiers doing nothing much productive except draining working people dry.

Band 2 and 3 levels of pay (NHS) should be scrapped.

Also, we have a hell of a lot of sick leave (not me) which means staff left in the NHS are doing the work of another person as well as their big workload. This causes these people to become burnt out and stressed. And the merry go round carries on.

Our annual staff survey results are shocking!

This.

And, don’t get me started on costs generated by the Royal family over the last couple of years! I’ll leave that one in its box.

I am also a band 7 nurse. I am working this weekend and there are 4 of us on duty. Only I am employed by the NHS the other 3 staff are agency, they are earning far more than me per hour yet alone what the agency costs are. If we offered a decent salary then we would not be paying millions to agency staff. It is such a false economy.

We have 3 agency staff in at the moment and they are paid at band 4 - they are doing less that what the band 3’s are doing and, obviously, it isn’t going down well!

We are also paying a quality management ‘expert’ £900 a day to sort the archaic QMS out. Had this been properly invested in this wouldn’t have been needed. It’s shocking tbh!

Where has the billions, we were told, saved from Austerity? all those public services closed, roads not repaired, libraries shut?

All the billions not paid out to the EU ? ReesMogg said a few weeks ago, we have saved 10s of billions.

Where has this money gone? debt is going UP, so it hasn't been used to pay any of that off.

Yet we have more millionaires and billionaires than ever before.

@Howpo but people won't vote to close that gap which is the stupid thing.

@TulipsandButterflies but why should only working age people fund it?

Too much money going to a tiny number of people. They got too greedy and we are being blatantly asset stripped. It won't end well.

I do wonder what effect quantitative easing had

it boosted asset values & devalued wages. Also discouraged investment by gov & companies

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Ghe5TBQGYIOANuiNW4hDQ

I have found listening to this man very eye opening as somebody who knows little about the way economics work. It now makes me sick to realise how shafted we are by our Government.

Ah, I hadn't read the thread.

I'm glad someone else also said asset stripping.

Until we name the problem we can't deal with it