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

I see BT staff are being offered about 16%. Do the Tories think telephone engineers are worth more than nurses and railway workers?

I see barristers have quietly got 15%.
Striking is a last resort and the only way people, usually in public service, can get listened to. They have worked for 10 years with no increase, went beyond duty to deal with Covid and all that clapping doesn’t get the mortgage paid or put food on the table.
This 19% is bandied about but I am sure much less would get them back to work, but if there is no discussion between parties it can only be assumed it’s yet another underhand way to grind the nhs down in preparation for a profit seeking American system to be pushed on us. Now that does fill me with fear.

I absolutely do not support strike action.
I support a claim for a reasonable increase in salary, but not using strike action as a weapon; it is using patients' needs as blackmail.
This ties in to the recent discussion about vocation; not to do with working selflessly without pay, but upholding certain principles and duty of care. If that sounds priggish I apologise, but I applied it during my working life as a teacher, despite being an active union member.

Very apt, Wwmk2.

But until the populace really takes on board the fact that the government is lying to us about the state of the economy and starts actively protesting that the NHS is being kept short of funds to properly pay its staff, we'll just go round and round in circles with divisive arguments about whether or not they're worth paying...

IMO the government is either stupid in that it can't see that paying people decently will contribute to the 'growth' they're after, or they are very deliberately running down the NHS...

👀

Is this a first, growstuff? Us in agreement.

Casdon

pascal30

They are not allowed to call themselves nurses because they aren't registered...

They call themselves nursing auxiliaries - we are splitting hairs here, they are better qualified and do a more difficult role than shelf stackers in Tescos, but are paid less. That can’t be right.

No, I don't believe we are splitting hairs. I agree with GrannyRose. In the same way, TAs aren't teachers.

Casdon

In any argument it is good to know what you are arguing about. Unless of course you want to deliberately mislead. My comments have been about qualified nurses.
If you want to include unqualified auxiliaries in the discussion that's your prerogative, but you have to make it clear that that is what you are doing, and not try to pretend that we are talking about the same thing.

Casdon. I agree about the work, I was just pointing out the difference in role names..

pascal30

They are not allowed to call themselves nurses because they aren't registered...

They call themselves nursing auxiliaries - we are splitting hairs here, they are better qualified and do a more difficult role than shelf stackers in Tescos, but are paid less. That can’t be right.

Spotted in our local Aldi, they are recruiting staff starting pay minimum £12.50 an hour. That’s £2 ph over minimum rate, making a big difference to a wage packet.
You can’t blame poorly paid nhs staff considering a move. They will be a great loss, but well done to Aldi raising the stakes.

They are not allowed to call themselves nurses because they aren't registered...

GrannyRose15

Casdon

GrannyRose15

Lower paid staff get less than a shelf stacker in tescos but yet have so much responsibility."

This is simply not true.

Starting salary for nurses is £27055

Shelf stackers in Tesco's get paid £10 per hour equating to a maximum of £20800. With far less generous benefits.

Pedalling mis-information doesn't help the argument.

£20,270 is the starting salary for a healthcare support worker aka auxiliary nurse GrannyRose15. So yes, they do get paid less than shelf stackers in Tesco - and of course carry a lot more responsibility.

I thought we were talking about nurses.

They are nurses? They aren’t graduates, but they are bedside nurses, and they receive a considerable amount of training and take responsibility.

Casdon

GrannyRose15

Lower paid staff get less than a shelf stacker in tescos but yet have so much responsibility."

This is simply not true.

Starting salary for nurses is £27055

Shelf stackers in Tesco's get paid £10 per hour equating to a maximum of £20800. With far less generous benefits.

Pedalling mis-information doesn't help the argument.

£20,270 is the starting salary for a healthcare support worker aka auxiliary nurse GrannyRose15. So yes, they do get paid less than shelf stackers in Tesco - and of course carry a lot more responsibility.

I thought we were talking about nurses.

100% behind the nurses…and other public service workers who are prepared to stand up for their sector. Their clients’ eg patients and pupils, are getting a raw deal too from underfunded services and overworked and under appreciated staff.

As I have said before, the problem is retention and recruitment. Those of you who state firmly that you do not support the strike need to realise that until nursing (and other allied professions) are paid a wage that recognises their skills and responsibilities, the time will come that they aren’t there any longer,

I am aware that I was extremely lucky when I was nursing in that I earned enough to pay my mortgage and bring up my daughter, as a single parent. When I retired I was one of the last to get a pension based on my final salary and a good pension too. Pensions are no longer calculated that way. Those less senior than I was did not fare so well, but, I understand that they still got better pensions than those retiring now.

I don’t think anybody should ever have to pay for parking at a hospital provided they have a legitimate reason to be there.

👏👏👏

Farzanah

^nobody pays for parking in Wales^.
Problem is if you are living in a border county you may have to go to English hospital for treatment. My local hospital sold off its car park to a private company whose charges are high.

True, but in fairness hospitals in England aren’t controlled by the Welsh Government so there’s nothing they can do about that - presumably the same applies to Scottish residents using English hospitals. I don’t think anybody should ever have to pay for parking at a hospital provided they have a legitimate reason to be there.

Baggs

sandelf

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.

This is a good point about NHS administrators (or whatever the hirers of agency staff are called) paying over the odds instead of there being in house training systems for, say, A-level school leavers to learn on the job, starting doing the more menial tasks and gradually becoming well qualified nurses.

There are bound to be other problems associated with employing agency workers as well as the outlay of more money than would be needed for in-team staff.

On another point – about comparing nurses' pay to that of people who get paid by the hour – professions like teaching and nursing have never been paid by the hour. The pay is an annual salary and you are meant to do whatever it takes to do the job properly. And that of course can and does often end in burn-out.

The hiring of agency nursing staff is done by senior nurses on behalf of the wards, theatres etc. Baggs, not by administrators. The theory is that as they manage the budgets the shift cover is optimised. However when there just aren’t enough staff to go round they have no choice.
The determination of nurse planning is done at national level though, so if there is insufficient government funding the number of places required are not available - there’s no control at local level.

About twenty years ago a nurse I knew, then aged about thirty, went to university and during that time also worked as an agency nurse to fund her degree.

Because she had good specialist experience as an intensive care paediatric nurse she was able to do agency work for £90 per hour - £900 for a ten hour shift.

This was twenty years ago - so what are specialist agency nurses paid now?

My bug bear working with agency nurses was, time wasted showing them how the ward was run, where everything was and on top of this, I came across a few who were quite frankly, slackers and of not much needed help. It was referred to on occasion in our profession as easy money as they earned much more than the permanent staff. Like all professions though, you will also find the bad along with the good.

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 remember years ago when I went for a hospital appointment the senior nurse said he was on holiday for the next fortnight. When I asked where and said I'd be sorry not to see him the following week he said he was also working for an Agency and would be covering his own job for a fortnight, not having a break.

sandelf

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.

This is a good point about NHS administrators (or whatever the hirers of agency staff are called) paying over the odds instead of there being in house training systems for, say, A-level school leavers to learn on the job, starting doing the more menial tasks and gradually becoming well qualified nurses.

There are bound to be other problems associated with employing agency workers as well as the outlay of more money than would be needed for in-team staff.

On another point – about comparing nurses' pay to that of people who get paid by the hour – professions like teaching and nursing have never been paid by the hour. The pay is an annual salary and you are meant to do whatever it takes to do the job properly. And that of course can and does often end in burn-out.

When I worked as a CPN we had to pay for parking even though needing transport was part of our job.. and we didn't get any help towards running a car..

True, Farzanah
I did wonder if we might have been seen more quickly over the border.

Charging hospital staff and sick people for car parking is very wrong.