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

Stiff

I don’t support them AT THE MOMENT. People striking is not helping inflation, not one bit. Bad times are impacting all of us not just nurses. Once times have improved they will get my support but not right now. Where on earth do they think the money would come from to fund a pay rise like they’re demanding?

Most of their pay will circulate back to the Treasury through direct taxes and National Insurance and indirect taxes on nearly everything they buy with their money.

How do strikes contribute to inflation?

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Does anyone know how nurses' pay compares to other higher educated public service workers eg teachers, accountants, social workers, librarians etc

I don’t support them AT THE MOMENT. People striking is not helping inflation, not one bit. Bad times are impacting all of us not just nurses. Once times have improved they will get my support but not right now. Where on earth do they think the money would come from to fund a pay rise like they’re demanding?

Sorry, I forgot the source:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/63587909

I do not support strikes. I was a nurse and would not see patients' treatment compromised. The sickest people will suffer from suspended waiting lists and appointments cancelled.

I was in the nursing profession for38 years and only heard about the nightingale pledge on this thread!
I think the management of nursing needs a serious overhaul.Nurses we’re not valued or even told’well done’ by any managers,not just me but any of my colleagues,but my goodness, step out of line and you were given some serious penalties.No carrots, all stick!
If nurses were valued they maybe wouldn’t strike,but the pay is not good and is the cited reason for the strike.
Many manager are on grade 7 and above and don’t have masters degrees or above, business managers, public health managers,procurement managers.etc.
I actively discouraged my children from becoming nurses,not because of the pay, but because they are not valued by the employers.

MaddyB

An interesting article in the Telegraph today saying ‘ The facts about nurses’ pay are these. Newly qualified nurses earn about £31,000 per year, once overtime and unsocial hours payments for night shifts and weekend shifts are taken into account. Full-time basic pay for nurses with eight years’ experience will be £40,588 next year, and the most senior nurses are paid £109,475. Taken across the board, nurses are paid an average of £35,600, which will increase to £37,000 next year, before overtime and night-shift payments are added.

Nurses benefit from a generous pension scheme into which the NHS contributes 20.6 per cent of their salary, compared with the legal requirement of 3 per cent under the Government’s auto-enrolment scheme. The average employer contribution in the private sector is 4.5 per cent, and even in the financial sector the average is only 9.5 per cent. The longest-serving nurses can retire at 55, 10 years before state retirement age, though early retirement has been scrapped for those who entered the profession more recently. Other perks include 33 days’ annual leave for those with 10 years’ service and six months’ sick leave on full pay.

There are only 306 nurses in England in Band 9 - they're the ones earning £109,475.

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.

Ladyleftfieldlover

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

A very old fashioned view. They used to get paid reasonably. The NHS had a high satisfactory rate when labour finished in power in 2010. Now it's substandard. They have to live

They don't get bursaries anymore. There pay is appalling. The care assisant's are not on much more than the minimum wage and do the job nurses used too

As for pay: It's simple why they have set it at 17%. They aren't going to get that. They know it. It's a starting point.

You don't start on the % you want. You start higher with the aim of getting what you want. Just as those negotiating will start lower to meet in the middle

Interesting.
I did wonder if nurses took work home with them, that is records to be completed, paperwork etc, or if all work took place in the hospital or surgery during working hours.

I definitely support them in theory I just worry about the state of the waiting lists and how much worse this will make it. I think the nurses and junior doctors work very hard for a small hourly rate in comparison to what they actually do and the hours they have to work. There are too many Managers in the NHS and they are not doing their jobs correctly in order to get the best rates on contracts etc. I suspect there's are much corruption and friends helping friends in NHS as there is in the Government. To my mind this is worse. However the country is in a very precarious state at the moment and any more strain on its finances might just push it over the edge into a really long and disastrous recession in which case the nurses will suffer just a much as the rest of us.

An interesting article in the Telegraph today saying ‘ The facts about nurses’ pay are these. Newly qualified nurses earn about £31,000 per year, once overtime and unsocial hours payments for night shifts and weekend shifts are taken into account. Full-time basic pay for nurses with eight years’ experience will be £40,588 next year, and the most senior nurses are paid £109,475. Taken across the board, nurses are paid an average of £35,600, which will increase to £37,000 next year, before overtime and night-shift payments are added.

Nurses benefit from a generous pension scheme into which the NHS contributes 20.6 per cent of their salary, compared with the legal requirement of 3 per cent under the Government’s auto-enrolment scheme. The average employer contribution in the private sector is 4.5 per cent, and even in the financial sector the average is only 9.5 per cent. The longest-serving nurses can retire at 55, 10 years before state retirement age, though early retirement has been scrapped for those who entered the profession more recently. Other perks include 33 days’ annual leave for those with 10 years’ service and six months’ sick leave on full pay.

Striking does not sit easy with me but I support the nurses in their strike action. My daughter is one of those "natural nurses." She is a Diploma nurse who was extremely fortunate to receive a bursary and is now 10 years qualified and at the top of her pay scale. However in the current pay scales her particular specialty is not recognised for its complexity and skills required, yet she is paid the same as a 10 year qualified registered nurse who runs an outpatient clinic every day and deals mainly with paperwork. She is expected to work as a lone practitioner who assists the Consultant during out of hours life saving procedures and is On Call for at times 3 consecutive 24 hour periods. She is qualified in Advanced Life Support, a qualification some junior doctors find difficult to pass and just last week had to perform CPR during a procedure. If you have ever witnessed such an incident you will appreciate just how much it affects everyone involved.

She has often joked about getting a job in Tesco or Aldi where the hourly pay is not that far off what she is currently earning. Maybe she will one day .... but what a waste!

Of course they need to strike if they want to be noticed. At the moment they are taken advantage of.

Exactly. I agree wholeheartedly .

yes I support the nurses and we shold put a plan to stop agencie nurses at very high pay which the nurses do not recieve asnd asgences should not recieve inflated wages

Sorry @ ladyleftfield are you serious? Decent wages weren’t expected ? What planet do you live on? Something can be a vocation AND you can expect a decent wage. I’m disgusted by your comment.

thanks Casdon for the info. I do agree that nurses should get a reasonable increase - not over the rate of inflation though. There are many public sector workers that deserve a pay rise, eg teachers and teaching assistants. I don't agree with the nurses striking as I think of all the poor people who would be affected by it, and I believe that they should put their patients first.

My niece is paid for 12 hour shifts, but she is NOT paid for the 1/2 hour handovers at either end of the shift!

Nursing seen as a ‘vocation’ so that means they shouldn’t expect a decent wage What nonsense LadyleftoverLover

When I trained you went to a school of nursing and received a salary. I worry with the only option being graduate entry that this puts off potentially fantastic nurses who are worried about the academic focus of a university. There is also the question of them starting off their nursing career with a student loan to pay off. There is no subsided accommodation anymore and so renting as a young nurse at the start of their career is a challenge. Towards the end of my career I had to live a long way out of London where my post was and it took me a minimum hour and a half to get into work and the same back - so not much time to sleep after a 12hr night shift on children's intensive care. No nurse ever wants to strike but something needs to happen if they are ever going to be recognised for the tremendous skills many of them have - often akin to a doctor! Maybe MPs could reconsider their salaries and perks - inc accommodation!!

I think that if starting salary especially was higher it would encourage more young people to train to become a nurse....

As patient safety is already undermined by staff shortages I can't imagine that the claim that patients safety will be unaffected is true, although I have read that A&E services will be excluded from strike action.
I don't feel any more or less sympathy for them than any other group who feel that their pay is not sufficient to cope with the cost of living. Most employees have the right to strike of course, but their actions don't tend to inconvenience the right people.

Having being in hospital last year myself and watching these poor nurses running around non stop due to staff shortages yes I do support them I think anyone in public service should get what they deserve nurses army police etc. I’m waiting for appointment at Hosptial but I still support the nurses