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?

And it really shouldn't be a degree level job which would eradicate the fees

This really shows how little you understand about the complexity of modern nursing.
Was your child on complex drugs, chemotherapy, a ventilator, dialysis ?
Did you take their bloods and interpret the results, inform the junior doctor and advocate?
Nope you didnt
All the studies have shown that the higher the level of education the more lives are saved.
Why? Why do people want to be cared for by an uneducated nursing workforce
I dont get it?

Nurses maintain lives following doctor's instructions or routine. There is limited critical decision making involved and, where there is, the responsibility lies with those more senior. Hence doctors and surgeons are paid more.

Wrong. I make autonomous, life changing decisions as a nurse. I’m a band 5 in the community working OOH alone with no doctor support.

Our local hospital has recruited 6 Indian nurses per ward... so around 100 in total ....and their husbands have all been given HCA jobs ....regardless of their previous profession .....I'm guessing many hospital will be taking this route

www.nurses.co.uk/blog/a-nurses-guide-to-nhs-pay-bands-in-2022/#band89

Band 5: £27-32k
Band 6: £33-40k
Band 7: £41-47k
Band 8: £48-£91k
Band 9: £95-109k

It's hard to agree that nurses need to be paid more.

Those who take on more risk in their role generally command higher salaries. Nurses maintain lives following doctor's instructions or routine. There is limited critical decision making involved and, where there is, the responsibility lies with those more senior. Hence doctors and surgeons are paid more.

You have no idea what you’re talking about. I work as a nurse in primary care- see, assess, diagnose and treat patients independently. If it wasn’t for me they would need to see a GP who probably costs triple what it costs for me to see them. The pay difference is insulting. The fact that you think nurses have no critical thinking is insulting.

Thank you! I'm about to bust a blood vessel ... ppl think the most complex education nurses have us bedpan management courses ... sigh ! Ppl outside of healthcare have very little understanding of today's complexity involved in nursing

@Beginbylettinggo look at the proportion of nurses in each banding. The vast vast majority are band 5 and 6, I’ve never in my life met a band 9 nurse. Even the most senior nurses in hospital are generally an 8.

That shows what the Tories think of funding the NHS. The patients have been suffering from the nurses lack of morale for well over a decade now. The staff hierarchy of HCPs seems like a massive and dangerous problem, as well as the poor pay of nurses and all those 'lower' than them.

Why shouldn’t nurses have degrees?

Why would we not want a highly educated workforce?

This country loves sufferation, so many folk like a race to the bottom instead of progress, innovation and improvement.

Doctors instruction 🤣. It’s more likely the nurse telling the doctor what is going on.

Nurses.

You don’t need support from the public or the government. You won’t get much from this website, which seems infiltrated more and more by Tory bots, people with grudges and some very strange characters.

When you take strike action the government will have no choice but to cave in to your demands. Nursing is a huge safety critical workforce which, unlike the junior doctors, is too big for colleagues to step in and provide cover. Even if ‘just’ elective work stops, it’s too important to allow a strike to run for weeks. Hold firm. Vote yes.

I will absolutely be voting for strike action.

And the vast vast majority of nurses are band 5.
There are tiny numbers of band 7 and above as a % of nursing workforce

👏 yes. This. This is what ppl need to know. I'm a clinical nurse specialist I hold my own clinics prescribe for my patients and support doctors .. literally this .. but hey we don't need degrees eh?! 🤦‍♀️

@MyrtlethePurpleTurtle

Regarding public sector pay rises - since 2008 the majority of years have either had no rise or 1% rise - not in keeping with inflation and a drop in real terms . I'm sorry that you have had no rise in your private sector company - but that isn't the case with any one else I know who works private sector.

Agree @LionsandLambs , quite frankly I want you all to vote yes to force improvement in the service I receive.

Thank you for your service.

(And yes I know there are some shit nurses/Drs etc I’ve experienced it. But when orgs are desperate for resource they are less likely to sack shit staff).

Because some people really don't get it and think that relying on 'common sense' is best. Sigh.

@queeniegee

Sadly, industrial action may be the only way, as the present situation is unsustainable for us all.

I know what a terrible decision it is for nurses, and for the rest of us, but you are leaving in droves. The service can't sustain this.

Pay, conditions, toxic management have all contributed to this.

I think this is a privitisation by stealth on the goverments part. I can't believe that we have such a dreadful goverment that has the priorities so wrong.

We all of us have to resist this.

"Those who take on more risk in their role generally command higher salaries. Nurses maintain lives following doctor's instructions or routine. There is limited critical decision making involved and, where there is, the responsibility lies with those more senior. Hence doctors and surgeons are paid more."

This is a very backwards view of the nursing role. In case you hadn't noticed nursing and indeed healthcare has changed beyond all recognition in the last 40-50 years. The role of the nurse and the level of skill and knowledge has also changed ( dramatically increased) with that.

I can assure you that nurses most definitely are making clinical decisions and not just within narrow parameters set by a Dr.

I work in the community ( wouldn't go back to a hospital for any money) hospital work has changed ( for the worse) year on year and the conditions are now horrific.

I am an autonomous practitioner, my colleagues come to me for advice because I have many years of skills and experience, as previous posters have said this is what we have lost in many specialities in the hospitals (and continue to do so). We work as a wider MDT and draw on the skills and knowledge of all areas to support patients.

Whilst a pay rise is not going to solve all, it will go some way to retaining staff and reduce the revolving door of training new nurses only for the conditions to be so bad that they leave or are signed off sick after 1 year due to the pressures.

Our relative pay since the 1990 has gone down and down with each successive under inflation 'pay rise' the 5% above inflation takes us closer to where we were many years ago. It does not take us anywhere close to where American or other nurses in developed nations are paid.

As for the poster who called for those nurses trained in the NHS and then left for overseas to return, would you return to the UK for worse pay and conditions??? No thought not!

I can't vote to strike I work for a community interest company ( nhs terms and conditions) so I am not included in the vote, but I absolutely support my NHS colleagues and would strike if able.

If the government gave a damn they wouldn't have scrapped the bursaries for training (there did used to be bursaries right I didn't imagine it?). If you want decent healthcare make it attractive e.g. you don't have to pay to train, and even better provide a basic salary on top even if it's minimum wage. How long does it take to do the training? I wouldn't be surprised if long term the financial investment of government paying for training plus a wage over 3 years or whatever would pay for itself in that maybe less people would drop out and you wouldn't have to recruit from abroad not to mention the cost of agency workers. If you really have to make it a condition that you have to work x years after qualification in the NHS or you repay your training fees if you leave to work elsewhere within that time (on a sliding scale - the longer you work the less you are obliged to repay until you can leave without paying anything). It also blows my mind that you have to pay for parking. I know land is expensive and it might not be possible to have parking nearby but how about a park & ride service where you scan/show your ID to get into the car park and there's a bus to and from the hospital every x minutes (not a nurse, so I don't know if that would be feasible or not). Maybe I'm missing something but whilst there's no short term fix a long term fix looks pretty obvious to me. Pay a decent wage, and make it easy to train in the first place. We've got money for HS2, PPE that can't be used and goodness knows what else but not this. Blows my mind.

@Beginbylettinggo are you a nurse? Do you work with nurses? If not you'd do well to keep your 1920s view of nurses to yourself unless you like looking like a total fool (which you've already done spectacularly). If you are a nurse....god help you

At the end of the day, it is absolutely apparent that whether you agree with it ideologically or not, nurses need to be paid more. They also need to be respected more.

I have four friends who were nurses. They are all clever, resourceful, hardworking individuals - insanely hardworking. They have ALL left nursing, because the combination of insane hours, flak from the public, limited pay according to their education and ability and commitment, and general lack of respect for being 'just' a nurse, meant that it didn't seem like a good deal for them. The other nurse I see regularly - a fifty something cancer hospice nurse - is taking early retirement because she's so burned out. Think of the emotional toll of being a flipping hospice nurse, or a children's hospice nurse, and how much we as a society need them and will be FUCKED if there aren't any of them!

I'm sure if they were paid more then more would see it as worth the other trade offs.

There's also so much 'women's work' that is not given the respect by society it deserves. So many women of my mum's age were given three choices; nurse, teacher or secretary. I literally cannot count how many of my mum's friends or friends' mums are one of these three professions - because that was what was available to them and seen as achievable and a 'naice' profession. Now women have all sorts of other options and they are taking them. So we have a teacher shortage and a nurse shortage and being a PA (private sector) has absolutely shot up in pay in many sectors/areas (e.g. London finance firms), until it has reached the point where (gasp) some men are prepared to do it!

This is spectacularly ignorant. Your understanding of what nurses do appears to be stuck in the 1950s.

What makes you feel so qualified to pontificate about something you clearly know nothing about? It's pure arrogance.

Bet you are on benefits

I'm not a nurse but I am an NHS Dietitian and I will vote for industrial action. This government have screwed us for way to long.

Also has the stupid woman heard of Brexit and how much we British hate all those foreigners coming to take all our jobs 😂🙄🙈