Nurses pay rise

[Peaceiseveryrhing]

Firstly, I really appreciate the work that the medical profession carry out. However, having read the news this morning and talk of nurses going on strike, it got me thinking.

There are so many people in this country that can only dream of a pay rise of any description, but instead have seen their wages decline year by year.

So, is it fair that nurses get a pay rise?

1% is better than nothing and vastly better than a pay cut

I agree with you OP.

My pay has been frozen but tbh I'm just lucky that I have a job.

If the money ain't there it ain't there.

Regarding strike action, are NHS staff allowed to strike? The fact that it's even being discussed is very worrying.

But it isn't a race to the bottom! No one should be facing pay cuts, and everyone is entitled to fight for a fair deal

NHS staff have seen their wages decline year by OP.
Data from this article.

I'm a healthcare professional - NHS. I have worked for the whole pandemic on covid wards ( the last few months whilst very pregnant ). I have watched my friends and family furloughed, struggling with reduced wages and even loosing their jobs.

I won't be striking.
It would always be appreciated to have a pay rise but where is this money supposed to come from when no one's been paying taxes. Why should I get a pay rise when my husband has had a pay freeze and my mum has lost her job.

@hamster99 Haven't a lot of people not even had a race to the bottom...they fell to the bottom practically overnight with a job loss.

I'm an NHS nurse. Yes we can strike. I'm not opposed to striking. There were times I've had a pay freeze and many years my pay rise was well below the level of inflation, so I was seriously skint and struggling to manage, despite being very frugal. I would have felt justified in striking at those times.

However I think it would be wrong to strike now at this time. So many people are facing terrible financial hardship. The pandemic has ruined so many people and the economy is in a mess. I'm lucky I have a job and can currently pay my bills. It would not sit right with me at all to protest about no pay rise and I'm hoping that other nurses feel like this. It would be great if the politicians weren't expecting or received a pay rise either!

I know they've had a awful year but the one thing they have had is job security and the money to put food on the table. The people who need help at the moment are those who have suddenly found themselves without a job/business.

Its not just nurses by the way. It’s most health professionals. Please don’t lump us into one profession . And it’s is particularly galling when the Drs and dentists were given a 2.8% pay rise for there hard work in the pandemic, but we were given nothing. Dentists getting a pay rise were particularly annoying as they have largely closed throughout this. I have worked on the front line throughout when everyone else was staying home, being furloughed etc. i brought covid home to my family in the first month. I think I do deserve a decent pay rise.

@Piglet92

I know they've had a awful year but the one thing they have had is job security and the money to put food on the table. The people who need help at the moment are those who have suddenly found themselves without a job/business.

It shouldn’t be either or.

Nurses deserve a pay rise and those who have lost their jobs should be helped.

Billions have been wasted and money has been mismanaged throughout this pandemic.

I think given the crisis in care that has been highlighted by this pandemic that the government should address this as the said they would in their manifesto. It is a national disgrace that our must vulnerable are being looked after by carers on minimum wage who cannot afford to go ill if they have Covid and rely on food banks. Many of these private care homes charge residents over a thousand pounds a week, so someone somewhere is making a pretty profit out of them.

It's all a mess. The NHS has been underfunded for years. The pandemic has highlighted how many are doing a thankless task. It's the same for the education sector too. Our schools have been underfunded for years. Again, highlighted during the pandemic. You o lot have to read the threads on here to see how vile people have been to teachers who are doing what they can with no funding or equipment.

Should the NHS get a pay rise? Yes. Should teachers get a pay rise? Yes. Should everyone who got make redundant due to covid get support? Yes. But it won't happen. The money isn't there.

So many people have lost everything due to this pandemic. I don't know what the answer is and I know 1% is a kick in the teeth to NHS staff but right now I can't bring myself to sign petitions about it.

Given that BoJo has spent £2.5 million on refurbishing the briefing room and now wants the public to fund doing up his flat it feels like a complete kick in the teeth. It just proves the Tories just don't give a fuck.

Is this pay rise just for nurses?

As141 - no anyone who is paid under agenda for change pay bands, so basically anyone in the nhs that isn’t a Drs or dentist. It is why is annoys me that the headlines are all about nurses.

@Carycy

As141 - no anyone who is paid under agenda for change pay bands, so basically anyone in the nhs that isn’t a Drs or dentist. It is why is annoys me that the headlines are all about nurses.

Thanks.

Yes it is annoying. So it doesn't apply to "junior doctors" (often not junior in age / every dr thats not a consultant) after years of training moving around the country taking on a lot of responsibility from very early on especially out of hours and often earn less than nursing colleagues.

I don't believe the NHS is underfunded, just incompetently managed. Too many middle managers that do very little.

Those on the front line, yes they need support, but get rid of the dead weight

They should get a pay rise if a strike would help why not? The government has been spending lot more money on publicity stunts (I’m especially looking at nightingale at.London). Why not spend money on the people who actually do the job?

It is not only nurses, think therapist, cleaners and everybody else payed under agenda for change pay bands.

@Peaceiseveryrhing, which jobs do you want to get rid off? Be specific and give your rationale.

I won't strike but I think there is a lot of Ill feeling to how we are getting treated. In Scotland, AFC staff get band 5 pay for carrying out covid imms ( so many including me getting paid significantly lower wage to do extra hours) however other professionals such as opticians are getting paid obscene amounts to carry them out.

No Drs are paid under a separate pay grading. Drs were given 2.8% pay increase last year whilst no one else was. I don’t dispute that Drs should be paid well.

Some of the more senior doctors/GPs have had a 2.8% pay rise. 'Junior' doctors weren't part of that.

By the way, it's not just nurses, from what I understand it's all health staff on the 'agenda for change' pay grades (which tend to be lower paid than the ones who've had the 2.8%) - willing to be corrected though.

I've been working as a band 6 specialist biomedical scientist in a microbiology lab. A huge number of our staff have been taken off the normal testing to do hospital Covid testing, which means we're operating with about 2/3rds of our normal staff doing all the other work.

This was fine when fewer people were coming to the hospital outside of Covid, now the backlog of people who haven't been able to are coming in and our work is rising steeply.

Most of us have had Covid or had to isolate at various times. Some of us have had to isolate from our families. One poor lady had to live separately from her husband and primary school age children for months so that she could come to work, as one was CEV.

There's also a nationwide shortage of biomedical scientists, especially (but not only) in microbiology, because they take about 3 years to train after graduating. Nothing seems to have been put in place to train extra ones to replace the deluge of people about to leave.

We've had poor pay and conditions for a long time, I don't think people have really taken that on board. This isn't just the last year. People have put off leaving the NHS to help out.

We have three qualified BMSs leaving within the next month, with no-one else coming to replace them. We're already skipping breaks, shortening lunches, and staying late pretty much every day. It's very likely to get worse.

That's before this excuse for a pay deal. I'm not worried about strikes, I'm worried that there's going to be a mass exodus (in which case I'll be going with them)!

I don't believe the NHS is underfunded, just incompetently managed. Too many middle managers that do very little.

Sorry - that may have been true once, but every last bit of fat has been carved painfully out now. As a % of GDP we were (pre-Covid) about on a par with Portugal, not France or Germany. Not much more we can do with that.

Feel free to publish any figures you have to substantiate your theory though.

Don't be fooled by the '12.5%' crap. Yes the lower increments in bands for this. Those at the top of bands got zilch. Nothing. It just meant you'd get to top of band quicker.

Experienced nurses got bugger all.

I was on a senior band for the last 20 years of a 38 year career and my pay gradually dwindled in real terms.

I left the moment I could.

And in the early days of the pandemic when we were all fighting for toilet rolls and shopping slots, and people were scared, nurses (and others) rocked up without adequate PPE and got on with it.

That shouldn't be forgotten.

Like all emergency services, nurses stepped forward when all others stepped back.

Pay freezes for the police and fire - disgusting

1% for nurses a gesture but nothing in real terms

This comes after years of pay freezes