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

Yes, the line being trotted out is the same as Theresa May's 'there's no magic money tree' for the NHS from a couple of years ago. It's bullshit though, just as it's bullshit that they're saying they have to get the money from insert emotive source here to pay for the NHS.

It will be paid from taxes and quantitative easing. Our taxes in the NHS too, by the way, we're not somehow immune from the taxes that everyone else pays. They just managed to get hundreds of billions of pounds at short notice, many times what it costs to fund the NHS, and certainly more than an extra 1% of pay would have cost.

We will all be paying for the whole of the UK to have been on furlough, NHS staff included, as well as badly researched white elephants like the test and trace system, for many years to come. That will be from our pockets, all of us.

They could have at least acknowledged that while everyone else was staying at home scared we didn't drop a day (other than when we had to isolate when we had Covid, or were hospitalised for it, or died from it). People have put off leaving the NHS for this, put off retiring, and even come back from retirement so they could help with the effort for this.

Expect mass walkouts (no, not strikes, people are exhausted and have had enough).

The government have just awarded hmrc 13% over the next 3 years. The magic money trees are definitely still in use. They just don't seem to want to give it to nurses.

I don’t disagree with you but I definitely don’t feel appreciated as an NHS band 2. I’ve had to go into covid rooms many times and no one tells me that the patient is positive, no green sign on the door either. I still haven’t had mask fit testing and have only ever been provided with the surgical masks. They have me so busy I don’t get a break and I have come home crying many times. My family joke with me that although I’m band 2, they are giving me extra work to do that isn’t technically in my job description and they are over working all of us to the point that I should be on a band 4 and my job description changed. The patients are suffering and no one cares. We are so short staffed and my manager said there is no budget for any more staff or any cover if someone is off work. The managers sit in their comfy little office, door closed. If you knock on the door 90% of the time the big boss will either not answer or she will shoo us away and close the door on us. If the CQC comes and inspects us everyone has to pretend it’s all wonderful and put on a show. They conveniently hire more staff and deep clean the ward, so they have the budget for that! Also they already know weeks in advance when we are going to be inspected. The whole NHS is a joke and the CQC are helping to cover the dangers. I say they should show up unannounced and see the real carnage, they should also be allowed to talk to staff away from the big boss as we are all too scared to tell the truth with her standing there glaring at us she is a disgusting bully. Bullying is very high in my trust and I have myself been down all of the paths offered and still came out at the end looking like a mug because there wasn’t enough evidence. Racism is high towards other staff and patients, abuse from visitors and patients is high. No one protects us, I’ve been told that I'm not allowed to contact security, I have to tell the nurse in charge if I feel threatened and they will decide. Fat chance of that as they are terrified of getting a complaint made against them. I’ve experienced and seen so much I have reported to my managers many times, I’ve even reported anonymously to the CQC and I never heard anything back on ward level of any serious complaint. I literally had 50 jobs to do on Friday, I had no lunch break and no food and no toilet break and I also left work late. So I do think NHS staff are in a different league because we watch patients suffering every day due to having no staff to help them. They are just left by themselves. If you are quiet like me the staff will walk all over you, unfortunately it’s too late to grow a backbone and I will be leaving the trust. Like so many of us do, until a new staff member comes along all hopeful and positive only to have her mental health crushed 6 months in. Im not a nurse I'm only a band 2! And I’ve been off for my mental health a few times in my years. If a band 2 has this much stress I wonder how a nurse or midwife feels 😞 I think the NHS is disgusting and I’ve heard that this bullying is happening in all trusts. I just can’t figure out why, probably bad management who do fuck all every day but get £60,000 per year. Every time I ask my matron an important question the answer is “I don’t know” that literally tells you everything you need to know. It’s time the truth came out, I wish someone would come and help us as we are being silenced by the managers.

There is a magic money tree. It's the ultra rich.

"The money isn't there" is ALWAYS trotted out on such threads, yet there IS ALWAYS money available for the things the tories WANT there to be

Just recently

As has already been mentioned test and trace equipment that didn't even work

Fancying up Downing Street etc

For paying off the staff who sued over priti patels shitty treatment of them

Paying off cronies generally

Hs2

Pay rise for mps

Also what needs to be borne in mind is that such decisions lead to massive problems with recruitment and retention which is a cost in itself - I'd bet good money that's more expensive than if they gave low paid nhs staff even a slightly better pay rise than this.

The decisions are always SO short sighted (unsurprising when they only really care about winning the next election, not how things will be in 10, 20 years)

BUT also remember this is ideologically driven, the tories don't and never have believed in having an nhs or even a welfare system generally, it would suit them just fine if we all turned against it! Please don't do this job for them!

The ignorance of the general public is staggering

Totally agree, but then I speak as a former nurse myself and I'm more aware than most that the general public often don't understand the effects decisions like this have on patient care.

Sadly I too think it will be exodus rather than strike.

Hope you're all prepared to have crazy long waiting lists for medical treatment from now on? Be treated by exhausted and not fully functioning staff? To be sent home earlier than is clinically advisable due to staff shortages?

Because that's the reality!

*Its not just nurses it’s the entire agenda for change - so nurses, radiographers, porters, HCAs, physios, OTs, domestics to name but a few

And nhs staff are allowed to strike, the post thatcher Tory voting public clearly won’t support it but the tory have butchered the nhs, and our patients aren’t safe. Never mind the pay.

The ignorance of the general public is staggering*

This!!!

Yes, it's not just nurses!

If the porters and domestics were to strike there would be absolute chaos in hospitals.
Equally if radiographers strike, there would be even more chaos. No xrays, scans or mri for patients.
Physiotherapists, dieticians, audiologists.

This runs alot deeper than nurses, and everyone's just about had enough of it

starting pay for nurses after graduating from what i can see seems to be currently higher than a lot of other grad jobs - £24k. And you dont go into nursing specifically for financial gain. I do think that nurses and other healthcare workers on the frontline should get a bonus in recognition of what they have put in/gone through over the last year. Similar things happen in private sector. That way it recognises the immense effort that has been put in but doesnt pay out extra to new joiners and for everyone for ever

Whatever it is that we are currently paying our NHS nurses, it obviously isn't enough otherwise there wouldn't be 36,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS.

Nurses' pay needs to rise in order to attract more people to the profession and also in order to retain those that we already have.

The big question, of course, is how are we going to pay for it!

@flowersWB that’s not entirely true. It’s a contract reform so the pay rise is being paid for by cuts to other benefits. It won’t cost the taxpayer any more than now. And the majority of the cost is going to bring the lowest paid above minimum wage

Does the quoted cost of the pay rise take into account the fact that some of it will go straight back not the Treasury’s coffers through increased tax and NI?

Also as for the issue of giving it only to front line workers only, how on Earth would that be implemented? Over the last year, some staff have worked in COVId wards all year, some for a few weeks - how could it possibly worked our fairly? My dd is a much maligned nhs manager and her trust works well because the underlying ethos is they are all one team. Even if differential pay rises could be given ( and they absolutely cannot) it would risk undermining the collective spirit which fosters respect for everyone’s contribution whilst appreciating the burden has not fallen equally. I know that’s not the language of the right who want the majority of us to fall out with each other whilst the elite minority run off with the spoils - how easily some are fooled.

I think they deserve more.
I don’t agree with a strike but I can understand why they would.

Maybe nursing should be better paid, although it's not as badly paid as the unions would have you believe, but the bottom line is, there isn't going to be any money for years while we pay for what this year has cost us.

People will point to e.g. Scandinavian countries and say they can do it, but the fact is they pay much higher taxes than we do and whilst people will say they'd be happy to pay for a properly funded NHS, that doesn't translate to votes. No party running on a manifesto of increased taxes ever wins in Britain.

What does need sorting out in the NHS is the waste and inefficiency. An elderly friend was due to have a scan last week, one where she has the contrast dye. When she arrived (by patient transport) they wouldn't do it because she hadn't had a blood test (something to do with the dye) No one had told her she needed a blood test, no one had arranged the test and no one had checked it was done before her appointment. So, the trip and the scan appointment were wasted and she's made countless phone calls this week to try and rearrange, all at a cost in labour to the NHS.

These kinds of situations, many times over must be costing a fortune in waste.

At a time when so many British people have lost their jobs, have job insecurity, are on furlough at 80% of their normal income, cant keep up their pension contributions, have increasing debts etc and when it is quite clear that there is no extra money in the pot, I struggle to see how anyone in any secure job can be indignant about not getting a pay increase. Many people would be grateful for the job security.

Many NHS staff (those not at top of pay band) receive increases automatically each year anyway, as they move up within pay bands. So 1% is on top of the pay band increment.

I agree for this year only. Money cannot be created out of nowhere immediately. But long term we need to sort out available money to pay an increase. The MPs could take less and could have their expenses curbed. There could be money available but it’s not readily available now so nurses will need to live with 1% right now. It is a lot more than many people are getting.

@Walkingtheplank seriously? Doctors and nurses have died having contracted COVID through treating patients with the virus, they work long hours, are abused regularly by patients and relatives, the list goes on, and you're wittering on about job security? 1% doesn't even cover the cost of living increase so in real terms it's a pay cut. This is on top of the pay freeze for the last 3 years.

As a PP posted - the NHS is full of vacancies for unskilled workers (e.g. porters, cleaners etc). Why aren't the people worried about job security rushing to fill these posts?

An interesting read if anyone can be bothered. I see so many posters on MN complaining about the money spent on "failed" Test and Trace (note: Track is different from a different pot of money).

Firstly, I have issue with "failed" as it is now, yes belatedly, functioning very well, and will be needed going forward.

The "budget" for T&T was £22bn, only £4bn had been spent up to November. Some of rest has been spent since, and the additional £15bn is "budgeted" for the next financial year. Most of the spend to date has been on labs, machines and test kits.

www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-governments-approach-to-test-and-trace-in-England-interim-report.pdf