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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sorry, I forgot the source:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/63587909

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?

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

As the proud mum of a manager of an adoption and fostering team I absolutely endorse JL and this advert! The company is supporting looked after children this year, hence the well presented ad! It has raised awareness and issues plus woken up those who’ve lost their sense of perspective! Life is tough in the social work community so this ad has been thoroughly embraced by those who work within it!

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?

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.

Oops commented on the wrong thread! Sorry

100% support from me

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.

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

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.

Eh?

sandlelf

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.