Nurses Strike -Do you support? What will it look like?

I fully support the nurses. During the pandemic we needed cleaners shop workers lorry drivers and nhs staff. I can’t remember clapping for hedge fund people and the like. Not only do nurses need a degree , loads of technical knowledge , but also so much emotional resilience. They see suffering every day, they tell loved ones that their parent,child, brother, sister, partner has passed away and manage the fall out. They went through emotional torture during covid holding iPads for relatives to say good byes whilst supporting their patients. They see things that most people never will ( thank god) . They also work both days and night shifts. Night shifts are known to increase the risk of chronic disease and early death. They go to uni to get degrees ,they are not paid anything like other graduates. Why does this country value bankers. MPs, insurance brokers etc more than nurses. Nurses deserve better pay. They are overworked , using food banks , looking after us at our greatest need. We all should value nurses. What will we do when we have no NHS !

Bignanny2

This is not going to be a popular post but I’m entitled to an opinion. I know a midwife and a recently qualified nurse in our wider family and they earn good enough money. They earn more than I do. Yes they work hard and they work long hours but again so do a lot of us. I was in fact in hospital last year and earlier this year and my brother was rushed in last week and from experience on both occasions I’d say that if they want people’s support and sympathy for their situation then they need to improve their work ethics (a lot of them seem to do what they need to and no more) and general attitudes. Yes again I know they are busy and stressed, but if they worked in a commercial business and treated or spoke to a client the way these nurses do to patients, stressed or not they’re be out on their ears. They need to appreciate that they have a job and an income.

I think you need to tell us what job you do Bignanny2, maybe you also deserve a pay rise. It does not mean nurses and midwives 'earn good enough money' just because they earn more than you. Also whilst concerning, yours and your brother's experience does not reflect the majority of experiences posted on here. If you haven't already, discuss your concerns with the ward manager and / or PALS, who can do something; rather than generalising on social media. We need to appreciate and invest in our NHS otherwise we will be at increasing risk of an USA type system where the vast majority of us will end up with a far more expensive (and unaffordable for many) health care system that really does put profit before patient care and where an obscene amount is spent making sure people's insurance will cover any proposed treatment.

Yes - I support the nurses strike. Please bear in mind that they aren’t just striking over pay, but also about the chronic understaffing in the NHS. This affects all of us. The lack of staff in key areas mean unsafe practice and demoralised and exhausted staff. Although 17.5% may sound like a lot, this demand comes on the back of years of pay freezes and underfunded pay awards which has led to the staff shortages we have now. How can it be that a highly qualified nurse can’t afford basics when they could earn 3 times as much by becoming an agency worker? The NHS has been wilfully and systematically broken by this Government. Underpaid nurses are one of the huge problems it faces. We need to all consider how much we really value “our” NHS before dismissing the nurses pay demand as unreasonable. My mum was one of the first NHS nurses and I grew up in a single-parent household where we all relied on her salary. I can assure you, regardless of whether she had a vocation or not, it was extremely challenging living on her salary. She (we) deserved more than she ever received, and so do the current nurses.

Yes I wholeheartedly support the nurses going on strike and good luck to their union which has built up a sensible ‘warchest’ of money to support them, reputedly £50million. However, it is, like the railways and the Royal Mail, about much much more than just money. Brexit has caused a severe jolt in Britain’s understanding of ourselves and our place in humanity and 12 years of increasingly right wing Governments has not helped our public services to hold and latterly regain their status and support from the public.

Everything today, and I do blame the ‘American dreams’ of Thatcher, Blair & Brown and Cameron, is about profit rather than duty and service - Britain has really suffered a huge loss in the last decade in the way we understand our way of life and we are much much poorer for it, in a million ways.

I support the nurses 100%, just as I would support any worker who feels the need to strike, nobody strikes for fun.
Bit back to the nurses, everyone was keen to clap on a Thursday to show their support, but that was easy, it cost nothing. Now it's time to show real support.

Nursing and midwifery has long embraced science and work in an evidence based way based on research and a huge body of knowledge. They are also taking on many highly skilled aspects of healthcare that were once controlled and carried out by doctors. While caring may be an art, nursing is also a science and qualified nurses now require at least a science degree and many have higher degrees and are independent practitioners (just had a hysteroscopy and biopsy done by an Advanced Nurse Practitoner, both children delivered by midwives and no medical staff present). Their pay has lagged behind for years now, if we want nurses, male and female, to be able to live off their salaries and not just work 'for pin money' or 'until they get married' and all those old assumptions about who comprises this workforce, they do need to be paid accordingly.

I 100%support the nurses they haven't taken this decision lightly

Ladyleftfieldlover

Wasn’t nursing seen as a vocation so decent salaries were never offered or expected?

That's because the profession was mostly women whose income was considered secondary to any man they might marry (see also, teachers). Women have traditionally been underpaid and exploited due to the excuse that it's a 'vocation'. No-one ever said that about male doctors or say, male firefighters!

We all know the nhs has been deliberately run down by the Conservatives over the last 12 years, so at some point, in the not so far future, we will be told it’s broken, beyond help and should be totally privatised. Heaven help us it’s not based on an American model but I wouldnt be at all surprised.

Profit is the prime motive, it always is.

Pammiel..

Hear, hear

Can I offer the perspective of someone who has a lifelong disability (spina bifida) and have been in and out of hospital all my life.

As a child and not fully aware of why these surgeries (some of them experimental in the 1960s to see if my life could be improved) were necessary, the nurses on the ward were my ‘in loco parentis’ figures and were kind, patient and comforting.

I was a child of the late 1950’s and things were a million miles away from where we are now. Even as an infant I remember screaming for my parents when I was admitted and they had to leave me there. There was no option for them to stay or even to visit outside the one hour a day times prescribed and the nurses had to fill the void.

When I was entering my teens and had a lot more awareness of my condition, and why I was having the treatment, they were my friends and confidantes during increasingly extended stays.

In later life I have still found this to be the case. The standard excuse for nurses low pay was always ‘it’s a vocation’, which, to my mind doesn’t, and has never stood up to scrutiny - especially these days, with ever more advanced qualifications to enter the profession.

It’s about time the government stopped making excuses and paid nurses what they are worth - as well as fixing the debacle surrounding the taxing of doctors’ pensions. We have a wonderful NHS - the problem is, that unless you have cause to need it, it’s easy to criticise. Only when it’s gone, will we truly realise what we had, and I hope before then, whatever government is in power will have the sense to eliminate the many unnecessary layers of admin and place the NHS firmly back in the hands of the medics who are best placed to operate it.

I agree that nurses should earn more, also paramedics and junior doctors.I was a non clinical middle manager in the NHS before retirement and earned as much as a junior doctor. My most junior administrator earned the same as a qualified nurse- rediculous! Senior managers were and still are on inflated salaries but it was us lesser mortals that did all the work! The whole pay scale needs to be looked at very closely,

Bignanny2

This is not going to be a popular post but I’m entitled to an opinion. I know a midwife and a recently qualified nurse in our wider family and they earn good enough money. They earn more than I do. Yes they work hard and they work long hours but again so do a lot of us. I was in fact in hospital last year and earlier this year and my brother was rushed in last week and from experience on both occasions I’d say that if they want people’s support and sympathy for their situation then they need to improve their work ethics (a lot of them seem to do what they need to and no more) and general attitudes. Yes again I know they are busy and stressed, but if they worked in a commercial business and treated or spoke to a client the way these nurses do to patients, stressed or not they’re be out on their ears. They need to appreciate that they have a job and an income.

Do you have a job where you get assaulted on an almost daily basis? You're condemning an entire profession based on the attitude of one or two nurses?

100% behind nurses who strike. They have a right to withdraw their labour. I will likely affected but I can't be a Labour voter and deny that fundamental right to anybody. On the separate issue of the nature of nursing, as I psychotherapist I have been working with NHS nurses who have come off badly in emotional terms as a result of the pandemic. My goodness, I couldn't have done their jobs and I think the fact that the nation came out on Thursday evenings and clapped them was an unconditional acknowledgement that they were going above and beyond what they were paid for - we must not forget that now things are a bit easier.

Casdon

Before we get diverted down a manager bashing route, here is the accurate information about relative costs, numbers etc.
www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-video/key-facts-figures-nhs
To be clear, long term underfunding of the NHS is the issue not over management, that’s just a lazy political excuse for the long term neglect of the NHS by the government - it’s a deliberate political strategy.

Totally agree. the old game of 'divide and rule'. Many Managers in the NHS work far more hours than they are paid. One of my AC stared off thirty years ago as a HCW, and has risen to be a very senior Manager. Yes, pay not bad, but she works close on 70 hours most weeks.

The NHS has been quite deliberately underfunded for so many years, deliberately privatised bit by bit by bit. Very little actually left. Nurse pay has been held back at least for the past twelve years. So encouragement for more of them to leave the NHS.

A very large increase is required and a very close and careful look at training.

After sampling the the nurses care this year I support them wholeheartedly. I was in a ward that was supposed to be 1 nurse to 2 patients when there was one nurse to 15 patients. I felt so sorry for the poor girls.

My only thought is that maybe any nurses, doctors,dentists etc should jot be able to become agency nurses, private doctors or dentists for some years. It costs a lot of money to train these people.

Over the last 10 years MPs have had a 32% per rise.
In real terms Nurse's and healthcare workers have had a20% Pay Cut
Yes I am backing Nurses and healthcare workers
Some lost their lives to Covid whole working with out PPE and let's not forget the Billions of tax payers money that went down the drain to Tories Family ,friends and Tory donors that got contracts that they did not deliver on .
They find money for weapons and war take a look at who is profiting from these sales .
Yes Tory Donors and Mrs May husband

Did any of you listen to the Consultant and nurse speaking on the news last night. They can get 2 or 3 times the same salary by coming out of NHS and work for agencies. So many of them are doing so, and it costs the NHS an absolute fortune. And the others are just leaving to go and work abroad, where conditions are so much better and salaries much higher.

A disaster in the making! The strike is the least of our worries, short, mid and long term.

Eh?

sandlelf

I fully support the strike, where above have I said I don't?

Agree with Wyllow3 and LizzieDrip. 'Nurse' covers such a range of work - and specialist knowledge or not, that talking about 'pay for nurses' in the round is a bit shallow. So I don't support strikes - and I don't support agency hiring either. If NHS abandoned using agency staff they would have to have 'in house' systems to cover unforeseeable gaps - it would cause problems but that's better than undermining the whole NHS by paying over the odds - a real incentive to leave.

I support all workers right to strike for better pay and conditions, whatever their industry

Glad you checked that out Casdon because I was just about to do it. I have a relative who ended up in mental health nursing and was just eligible to retire at 55. I remember at the time that she explained how lucky she was, but was going to check the facts before I posted on here.

100% support from me

Oops commented on the wrong thread! Sorry

There’s a lot of what I’d politely call liberal interpretation of the facts in the Telegraph article.

For example, to qualify for retirement at age 55 you have to be born before 30th September 1960, be working in the NHS in 1995 (this scheme only applies to those in the service then), and also be in a special class (eg mental health nursing). Retiring at age 55 on full pension never applied to general nurses.
You would already be over 55 if born before September 1960, so there will be very few staff still in the NHS this applies to.

Why oh why do people keep being taken in by the media.