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?

Does she not know nurses are already leaving!!
The working conditions at the moment are shocking. I don’t work on the wards anymore but if I did and I was working with a patient ratio of 1:8 (the usual patient ration within my specialty should be 1:3/4) I’d be leaving. I’d feel like I was risking my pin everyday.

Yet another kick in the teeth.

Voted with my feet and left the NHS.

Also voted for strike action.

.
Im curious but not convinced that we will influence much change but we are getting people talking and listening I suppose.

It’s the same old same old though, build up a bit of momentum… then nothing.

Nursing pay, conditions and low numbers comes to the forefront regularly year in year out. Everyone agrees that it’s a sad state of affairs but then absolutely nothing changes.
Except of course the huge influx of overseas nurses that are brought in.
So Coffey is just repeating what has gone on previously, nothing groundbreaking except she is being vocal about it.

Strike action won’t influence any change, I hope it does of course, but I don’t feel that it will.

@queeniegee but how is this different from other jobs?
I work in a 'government job' we've been told for years if we don't like our pay/conditions we can find another job. No one comes out in support though.
£27k is a good starting wage. I don't earn much more than that now after 20yrs. People seem to think that they should start on massive wages these days. My DP works for an emergency service and his starting wage was £21k a couple of years ago.
Breaks are unpaid in most jobs as far as I'm aware. Also most people have to pay for parking at work these days. Ditto student loans and professional fees.

This Tory government's economic plan is fir a high wage economy...unless you bloody try to strive for it that is.

We already have a deficit of 47,000 nurses, this Tory government have made it clear they don't want immigrants. If nurses do decide, "Fuck it, I'm off", where dies that leave this country?

So you don't want special people caring for you on your death bed then? It takes something special to give care with compassion. But..you've solved the crisis let's just bring people in from the street to do it as it's such an easy job, no specialties needed. Problem solved well done you 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Therese Coffey seems pretty dim to me. Arrogant with it too

I'd understand nurses if they voted to strike. I'd support it. This useless government really needs a kick up the arse.

Has anyone else noticed the influx of tv adverts advertising private medical insurance over the last few years?
They want more people to take out private insurance. They probably want the NHS to go to shambles so more people pay privately..

The NHS the envy of the world? Who actually says that. Other health services in Europe are much better. Smaller waiting lists.

As for getting nurses from abroad, what makes Therese Coffey think they’d want to come here anyway?

Because ppl die !!!! Ppl die if there is a 1:15 nurse to patient ratio! It's not rocket science

It's not a race to the bottom.

Your view is a dream view for a Tory government, not happy with pay and conditions but happy enough not to do anything about it.

Rather than berate the Nurses for striking, fight fir your own pay and conditions.

I mean, if I had a waiting list of 7,000,000 people I'd probably not tell the ones that will deal with that to effectively 'fuck off if you don't like it' but hey, I'm not a Tory.

I think you should apply that ridiculous statement to Therese Coffey. With a bit of luck though, like all ministers carrying out Liz Truss's bidding, she'll be out on her arse and thrown under the bus in the near future, along with our stupid Prime Minister.

As a fellow fatty I would be urge caution as I imagine she might need to access the healthcare system at some stage ...

What is it with those saying what's so different about nurses to say .. other civil servants. I get it. No one has any money. Ppl are not 'better than' or 'superior to' other workers. I will simply make the evidence-based fact clear that PPL DIE WHEN THERE ARE NO NURSES. Nurses are having to do the work of two or even three at times on the wards. Looking after up to 15/16 patients with high acuity ... this is not compatible with favourable clinical outcomes for patients. Come on guys.

Bet she did -cringe. Will probably be moaning on here when there are no staff when her or a family member are really ill

I fully support nurses striking-the Conservatives have treated you all appallingly. I don’t know anyone who isn’t 100% behind you. I hope the upcoming teacher strikes get the same level of support. It would be sensible to coordinate them.

Horrendous view- I’m a patient and for the most part had great care from nhs staff including nurses.

Can’t be done but would be great if While in the department all politicians should have to exclusively use the nhs if they need health including after for problems that then don’t get addressed during time there due to waiting lists.

Cool (she’s a delight isn’t she?!). A lot of the people l work have various different plans of how to get out. As will l in about 4-5 years. It will be a shame after about 15 years qualified but l can only be treated like a dickhead for so long

In all fairness it does up the risk.

💯 I'm also fully behind teachers they are vital and do an exceedingly difficult job

I agree with this. To me, nurses seem out of touch with the rest of the working population thinking they're so hard done by. There are many benefits of being a nurse that other graduates don't see - e.g. unparalleled job security, good pensions, good maternity and sick leave policies. And yes - £27k is an excellent starting salary. Many graduate engineers start on less than that. Also it's misleading to say that 9% of salary goes on student loans - it's 9% of salary above 21k. Besides, all graduates have to pay this.

The degradation of other public sector paygrades is also a shitshow, @PissedOffNeighbour22. Its not about pitting civil service, local authority roles or other public sector roles against nursing. Nursing and nurses are just trying to protect their patients and earn enough to pay their bills and feed themselves. Over the years, nursing has become more specialised and technical, along with the population becoming older and sicker, and the pay has not reflected that, in fact nurses have had real-world pay cuts. Nurses are told that they are ‘professionals’ but they are not treated as such.

As a PP pointed out, when nurses leave and staff rates are low (as they have been for years), patient safety is compromised. Countless studies bear that out. Even on wards or in environments where you might not think it’s a risk, or consider it a low risk.

I have seen this cut and paste and shared so many times in the last two weeks and it's a shame because some of it is good but some of it is just untrue.

First and foremost, I was always told nursing is a vocation, and not something you'd do if you had plans to get rich and retire early.

Now I'm not saying nurses don't deserve a pay rise, but striking and stamping their feet because they're not getting the % they want?

I'm not a nurse. I also worked through a gruelling pandemic, my work load increased and on top of this I had to manage home-schooling of 3 kids, one GCSE year, one SATS year. I haven't had a pay rise.

9% of net salary goes to pay student loan fees, but starting salary is ONLY 27k...... OK, well my take home has just gone over 40K and for the first time ever I've had student loan fees deducted - 13 YEARS after I graduated. So something isn't right somewhere is it?

11-13 hour shifts? I remember my first part time job too! Seriously, that is a choice - there are options for much shorter shifts working more days per week, but many are opting for 3 13 hour shifts per week instead of 5 8 hour shifts. It's a choice.
My average working day is 14-16 hours at least 3 days per week - that's my choice.

Professional fees for membership and registration - nursing isn't the only profession where this is mandatory. My professional membership fees are over £200 per year.

I sympathise, I do, but I can't help agree with what's been said by Coffey - if they want to leave let them go.
I can't help but feel some of it IS them being greedy, they knew what they were signing up for when they started the nurses training.

And no, I didn't clap for them on a Thursday night. I was at work.

Some of the posters on here are so out of touch with the nursing profession. To me it's the equivalent of having no kids and giving out parenting advice, criticising parenting skills and saying how you don't know what all the fuss is about.

Many nurses work in poor conditions with chronic and often dangerous understaffing and frequently have to put up with racism, bullying, disrespect and violence from patients and other staff.

This is what we need to address. The answer is not to plunder nurses from poorer countries.

We also should not be charging people to become nurses and saddling them with huge debt at the start of their working lives.

I was going to point that out too