Therese Coffey 'Nurses can leave if they want to'

[queeniegee]

I for one as a nurse will be voting for industrial action. Therese Coffey 'we will just get nurses from abroad if our nurses choose to leave' beggars belief and shows her utter contempt for nurses AND patients reflecting this government's stance on the general population of this country. They are the nastiest party I remember in living memory. Any nurses out there? What's the consensus?

Not a nurse, but know plenty. I hadn't heard that little gem from Coffey. But it rings true. Utter contempt and utter detachment from reality.

NHS nurse. I have nothing but utter disgust for the statement. Not only does it devalue us but also this smacks of colonialism doesn’t it? She clearly doesn’t understand the impact of drafting nurses from overseas. We decimated the Philippines in the early 2000s! Regardless of who works in the NHS the conditions and pay aren’t good enough - not for UK or overseas nurses!

They have left though haven't they? There are 47,000 vacant nursing posts in the UK. Be nice if the health secretary came up with a solution for that!

In the interests of accuracy, if you read the original article, that is not what she actually said. Some heavy duty paraphrasing going on.

She’s so lovely, should we start the process of having her canonised.. or does she have to be dead?

(ex nurse, left due to working conditions)

Living up to their reputation, as usual. I’m not remotely surprised that the reaction is a childish, knee jerk, “I’ll take my ball and go home”, rather than listening to genuine concerns, investigating and negotiating appropriately. Zero critical thinking and zero connection to the realities of the daily lives of the electorate. They disgust me.

I work for a private company, after the NHS decided that it didn’t want to provide the service I specialise in any more, so I went with the job.
I haven’t had a pay rise.

Get them from abroad? That will go down well with the Tory voters who voted for them because they want to cut immigration. Not to mention the ethical issues around taking medical staff from less wealthy countries.

@BabbleBee and yes to the skills drain on LMICs when nurses and other medical staff are ‘shipped in’. It has a huge impact on local communities.

Didn’t the Wetherspoons guy say staff should go get jobs in Tesco? She should be careful what she wishes for. Odious Tory with zero understanding.

Blimey love! Ok! Let's see how you fare when you need an appointment with a nurse practitioner and there are none to see you! Did you stand on your doorstep and clap for nurses? 😂

There is a GLOBAL nursing shortage. There is a GLOBAL health care worker shortage in general across nursing, medical and allied health. What a foolish thing to say.

Where from? There's a nursing shortage worldwide!

I don't work in the UK but I support the nurses decision to take action.

Maybe they need to start paying students at least minimum wage to attract them into the profession. Getting up at five in the morning to travel to work, coming home at nine at night on your feet all day for no pay. On top of that you have assignments to work on in your free time. And once you have your degree you may still only be earning a pittance. I am happy in my job now but knowing how hard the degree is I would choose something else if I had my time again.

For those who don’t work in healthcare, I wanted to help give some facts and context in support of my nursing friends/colleagues:

• In 2022/23, a newly qualified nurse will leave University with an average student debt of £35k.

• Their starting salary in the NHS will be £27,055.

• They will pay mandatory £120 for NMC registration to practice every year.

• They will pay between £200-500/yr in parking fees (depending on Trust) before even stepping through the front door.

• They will pay £15-£25/month for Union membership and professional indemnity.

• Their breaks are unpaid. On average they have 2x 30 minute breaks per long-day (13 hour shift) - if they can take them!

• 9% of their gross salary will be taken each month in student loan repayments. It is now estimated most nurses will never pay their student loans off in full under the new loans system, meaning this 9% deduction will continue for the majority of their professional lives until it is written off after 30 years.

• After adjustment for inflation, despite the most recent pay deal, nurse’s real wages have dropped by £1583 on average per year since 2011. Nursing pay bands are worth an average 11% less than they were a decade ago.

• There are currently thousands of vacancies across the country for nursing jobs, due to years of underinvestment and under recruitment, costing approximately £6 billion/yr in expensive agency staff.

• An independent study found a 10% pay rise to nursing staff would pay for itself through greater tax income from higher wages, and by reducing the amount of student loans needing to be written off.

• Another study found for every extra patient a nurse is asked to look after beyond a safe amount, the risk of harm increases by 7%. I have often seen nurses looking after patients on a ratio of 12:1. A safe amount would be considered 5:1. Do the maths.

Nurses are not greedy. They worked through a grueling pandemic to keep you and our loved ones safe. Over 850 healthcare workers are estimated to have died over the pandemic. Nurses as well have lost colleagues and family members to COVID-19.

Please support nurses in the weeks to come and don’t listen to Government propaganda. The recent pay deal amounted to a pay cut in real terms. It is not right that a nurse (or anyone!) should be afraid to put on the heating, or be forced to go to a food bank to provide food for their families.

Copied and pasted from a friend. Not my words.

Support nursing
Support fair pay
Support patient safety

#FairPayForNursing #FairPayForNHS

WTH? Not a nurse here, a teacher, but DH is a medic and DS has an underlying condition that has required many many nurses (and teams) to keep him alive over the last 9 years. Not only have they done that at each crisis point, but they've done it with a smile, kindness, care and warmth. I'll never forget the nurse who found me a straw to drink my coffee with through the side of my mask in children's resus at the height of the second lockdown when DS was being treated (not for covid). Nurses are not just people doing a job.

I've just been in hospital, the ward was ridiculously short staffed, 1 nurse for 4 immobile patients, and every nurse I encountered was run of their feet for the entire 12 hour shift yet they continued to do an incredible job!
I will fully support nurses if they decide to strike, current staffing levels are not safe for nurses or patients.

I have left......

For those of you who don’t know, you can claim the NMC £120 back via tax.

Many have, including me. Careful what you wish for.

Good one! 🤣 I bet she/he did as well!

Well I don't like Coffery, can we get our health secretary from abroad?

Not a nurse, but a midwife.
Absolutely disgusting comments from the government! 🤬🤬🤬

Good luck getting enough foreign recruits to fill all the vacancies.

I'll be voting for industrial action when I get my ballot

Surely half the issue with the NHS is that a lot of nurses have already left due to a number of factors....surely as health Secretary she should concentrate on retaining the ones that are still there

Wow @silverclock222 . Really hoping that was poorly-executed sarcasm there.

Will stand with you.

Somehow there's become an expectation that people doing public service roles must be martyrs to their job, and be glad to be paid a pittance to look after someone else's relative/child because "it's their vocation".

No. Public servants are people, who deserve fair wages which are equitable and linked to their level of qualifications and experience.

Nurses will vote with their feet, tea hers are already doing it looking at the vacancy rate. If you rely on schools or the NHS you should be very concerned indeed as the fallout of these gaps will affect you.