Nurses striking

[Jaceydooley]

When you’ve got a union boss talking so matter of factly that people are having chemotherapy cancelled over this and then bringing up pay I do think people can comment. The main focus on these strikes have been pay, all the signs on the pickets are about pay, if they want better working conditions then vocalise it.
People are allowed to have an opinion, the healthcare service affects all of us, not just the staff.

Yes, increase the pay and give nurses an incentive to want to work in the nhs! Therefore bettering the standards of care for patients and be able to run an efficient service!
How many people go to work and risk being prosecuted because they’ve killed somebody? How many people go to work everyday and are petrified that they are going to make a mistake that could harm somebody or kill them? Mistakes that are being made because there are not enough staff to look after the patients properly. One nurse having 10 critically unwell patients and no support-one tiny thing that can be overlooked because you are on your knees and that patient is DEAD. I’m sorry but if you work in retail or in an office,(or hundreds of other occupations), lack of staff won’t result in somebody dying. We are striking for all of you, for your families and to keep you all safe when you really need it. God knows you will one day and when that time comes you’d be bloody willing to pay ANYTHING to save yours or your loved ones life.

 

[OnlyHereForTheLolz]

I don’t think for a single second the strike is about anything but pay.

I’ve not seen a single picket sign that asks for better patient conditions.
All the unions want to talk about on national TV is pay.

All the medical staff are whinging about pay.

Show me once where anybody striking has said, I’m doing it for more support

 

[Jaceydooley]

Just 2 examples for you. There are hundreds more

 

[gigilouxx]

Okay so will this payrise reduce bed blocking issues caused by cuts to social care?
Will it stop people using A&E for minor issues cos getting a GP appointment is like pissing in the wind?
Will it reduce the effects of the ageing population where hospitals are full to the brim of elderly people in winter with flus and colds?
No one has came on this thread and said nurses are overpaid and don’t deserve a fair salary, my main issue is the comments regarding food banks, everyone’s skint they aren’t the worst off. But this “we’re doing it for you!” rhetoric might not sit so well with people who have had chemo appointments cancelled or have an elderly relative lay on the floor for 48 hours because £33k a year isn’t enough.

 

[Tui]

I don’t think for a single second the strike is about anything but pay.

I’ve not seen a single picket sign that asks for better patient conditions.
All the unions want to talk about on national TV is pay.

All the medical staff are whinging about pay.

Show me once where anybody striking has said, I’m doing it for more support

Honestly you don’t have a clue and have made that pretty clear in this thread. Try doing say, 5 minutes, research.

“Denise Kelly, Chair of the RCN Trade Union Committee, said: "Enough is enough. We have reached crisis point. We have been underpaid, undervalued for the safety critical nature of the role we do. But this is not just about pay, this is also about patient safety."”

Enough is enough | RCN magazines | Royal College of Nursing

In a historic day for the RCN, nursing staff came together to strike in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

www.rcn.org.uk

 

[Merpedy]

Honestly you don’t have a clue and have made that pretty clear in this thread. Try doing say, 5 minutes, research.

“Denise Kelly, Chair of the RCN Trade Union Committee, said: "Enough is enough. We have reached crisis point. We have been underpaid, undervalued for the safety critical nature of the role we do. But this is not just about pay, this is also about patient safety."”

Enough is enough | RCN magazines | Royal College of Nursing

In a historic day for the RCN, nursing staff came together to strike in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

www.rcn.org.uk

The fact that a lot of people seem to be only getting messaging about staff being underpaid would suggest that the messaging has not been very clear to the public and more focus has been given to the pay issue

Obviously pay requests bring a natural attention to the problem of pay, but it doesn't seem to have been explained enough to the public how higher pay = better service for patients

 

[Former_Antelopee]

Like the police, ICU, neonates, A&E. and other emergency care are not allowed to strike. So we aren’t all having a jolly on the picket line. I qualified many years back and lucky to leave with just a Student loan. Nursing students now have to pay tuition fees and get a student loan. so a lifetime of debt. Their uni year isn’t like others as they work year round and spend a lot on placement so really hard to get a job in between, and they come out of that at 27k & then a cap on their earnings. I’m top band five and have been for a while which means I’ll never get a payrise unless I progress to a band six, which i don’t want, or unless the government decides to pay me more. It might be a decent wage, but what comes in goes out and it’s not a fortune and things are getting more expensive and my wage is static and will not increase to reflect inflation - I depend on overtime to firefight my overdraft. I’ve no hope of a payrise and things are getting more expensive. So in hindsight instead of following a ‘vocation’ I’d have chosen another degree, a profession. Something well paid and less stress.

As I said before it’s not just nursing students who have to do placements for free to qualify? I had to do them, I just don’t want to say what I do on here. I understand it’s so hard and I guess like me nurses have to log things they do and do assignments during placement?
My mum works for the NHS and used to believe nurses should get paid/grants for doing their placements but now as she has seen it’s not just them that has to do it she has changed her mind. She still thinks nurses should get a pay rise though - it’s just the student thing she doesn’t agree with.
At the end of the day they knew that so they chose it. A lifetime of debt which isn’t really a proper debt is it? They’ll probably pay barely any of it off - I don’t. For the example on the website if on the new plan (2) and you earn £28.8k a year you’d pay £6 a month.

 

[Yel]

It all comes back to the cost of housing imo. If you bought your house a while ago and have had over a decade of low interest rates to pay off the debt then a nurses wage is good. If you're paying £1'400+ a month on rent alone then it's often a struggle with the other costs.

Decades ago they should have stopped house prices and rents going out of control. Instead they did nothing (both labour and Tory) and it was eventually going to cause all these problems. I don't know how this can all be unwound without causing damage. If a lid had of been kept on house prices most of these strikes wouldn't be needed.

"Good news! House prices up!"

 

[OnlyHereForTheLolz]

Honestly you don’t have a clue and have made that pretty clear in this thread. Try doing say, 5 minutes, research.

“Denise Kelly, Chair of the RCN Trade Union Committee, said: "Enough is enough. We have reached crisis point. We have been underpaid, undervalued for the safety critical nature of the role we do. But this is not just about pay, this is also about patient safety."”

Enough is enough | RCN magazines | Royal College of Nursing

In a historic day for the RCN, nursing staff came together to strike in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

www.rcn.org.uk

Who reads the RCN but people belonging to the union. Maybe ask them to publicly say these things not just claim it to their members.

You really have issues with ithers by your condescending manner. If it’s even true that you are a Dr I wouldn’t be surprised if you get struck off.

Anyway why did the thread title change? I wouodn’t bother with a thread for nurses striking.
We were asked our opinions on the matter

 

[gigilouxx]

Every single university student leaves with debt. Christ sake

 

[Tui]

Who reads the RCN but people belonging to the union. Maybe ask them to publicly say these things not just claim it to their members.

You really have issues with ithers by your condescending manner. If it’s even true that you are a Dr I wouldn’t be surprised if you get struck off.

Anyway why did the thread title change? I wouodn’t bother with a thread for nurses striking.
We were asked our opinions on the matter

Lol you have to do a lot more to get struck off than be bit snarky online. I'm actually very nice but tired of reading 26 pages of the same tropes about 'if you don't like it leave' 'whats wrong with working in Aldi' (nothing) and 'lots of people are low paid so why are they a special case'

 

[Gloria Rostron]

Just 2 examples for you. There are hundreds more

If they are concerned about dangers to patient safety, surely striking will only add to those dangers.

 

[Tui]

If they are concerned about dangers to patient safety, surely striking will only add to those dangers.

Perhaps in the very short term but those can be mitigated by trust planning. In the long term without addressing the NHS staffing crisis by making nursing a more attractive career and retaining the staff we have, then we are ducked so patient safety will only be further compromise d

 

[Gloria Rostron]

Perhaps in the very short term but those can be mitigated by trust planning. In the long term without addressing the NHS staffing crisis by making nursing a more attractive career and retaining the staff we have, then we are ducked so patient safety will only be further compromise d

Are they still forcing nursed to take the "covid vaccine" to be able to work?

 

[Tui]

Are they still forcing nursed to take the "covid vaccine" to be able to work?

No I don’t think they ever got as far as compulsory vaccination. It was in the pipeline then got abandoned

 

[judgejohndeed]

I'll be upfront that I am very pro these strikes but I am baffled by the amount of misinformation about the salary nurses (fully qualified band 5s with NMC pins, not nursing associates, HCAs, etc) actually get on here, seen someone say they start on 20k which is false, but equally all these 'they earn 33k' - they only earn 33k when they've been a nurse for 4 years? They do not all earn 33k. Equally they start on 27k not 20k or any of the other bizarrely low figures quoted on here. This information is in the public domain so I don't know where the numbers are coming from.

I support the strikes because I know having represented nurses and doctors working in the NHS how bad the conditions are - even when I worked in A&E as a band 3 receptionist at uni it was pretty grim but it's definitely a lot worse now - and I have seen firsthand in my cases the damage that a lack of staff is having on patient safety. However I also think this message is very lost in how these strikes have been framed, and perhaps it is also unfortunate that they've been around the time of other strikes where pay has been key, so to the public it is probably easily all written down to 'we want more pay' which makes sense.

Also, I think it would be stupid to deny that for some nurses it probably is about pay - everyone wants to be paid more, who wouldn't? Some of the arguments I have no sympathy for, e.g. 'I'm at the top of band 5 so I will earn 33k now unless I ever progress to a band 6' well yes, that's because you are just doing the same job for years on end, there's only so much skill you can gain at the typical band 5 nursing tasks and if your job remains the same in terms of skill and difficulty then I'm not sure why you'd expect more money just for more years of doing the same tasks? The NHS is already unique in the sense that the banding system already rewards you for having more years experience at the same job (diff pay ranges for less than 2, 2-4/5 years, 5+ years experience) when plenty of people will do the exact same job for years on end without getting paid more for the same job. This is a different argument entirely to e.g. 'the nature of my job has changed so much that I ought to be better renumerated to reflect the conditions and risk involved'. So I do get why these strikes are going down badly with the public tbh, the messaging and branding has been very poor.

 

[OnlyHereForTheLolz]

Lol you have to do a lot more to get struck off than be bit snarky online. I'm actually very nice but tired of reading 26 pages of the same tropes about 'if you don't like it leave' 'whats wrong with working in Aldi' (nothing) and 'lots of people are low paid so why are they a special case'

I never said leave and do retail work, not once. Ihave called you out on looking down and making unsavoury remarks about low skilled jobs. Also in general you have shown that you think you are better than others.

I’ve said from the start why I’m not pro strikes in this economic climate. I have also said I’d be supportive if it was a year or two down the line when the economy have recovered. But still you are continually making remarks about people and how idiotic they are for not being supportive.

Initially the thread was called OPINIONS and we shared them.
And if you are tired of the thread why keep returning trolling those you consider “below” you.

Let’s be honest not a single person have been able to show where in the public media it’s not been about pay. You can’t quote the RCN and some nursing magazine/website. Who outside of the medical field reads those?
But the biggest issue is the union reps who go on tv, smirking and just talk about pay

 

[Bettyboo2475]

Having to have a degree to be a nurse and there not being financial help is a major reason for lack of nurses. I wanted to train but can’t afford it. HCAs are doing what traditionally nurses did. Lots more paperwork for nurses now. I’ve worked for the nhs for nearly 20 years and hope that the love of looking after patients is put back as priority by our government.

 

[gigilouxx]

Having to have a degree to be a nurse and there not being financial help is a major reason for lack of nurses. I wanted to train but can’t afford it. HCAs are doing what traditionally nurses did. Lots more paperwork for nurses now. I’ve worked for the nhs for nearly 20 years and hope that the love of looking after patients is put back as priority by our government.

I read an interesting comment about the NHS using HCA’s as abit of cheap labour as their pay is absolutely rit. It’s a shame they don’t bring back more on the job training as I’m sure it would appeal to more people

 

[judgejohndeed]

There is the nursing associate apprenticeship where you start on a band 3 and do mostly work-based learning plus a foundation degree to qualify as a band 4 nursing associate. From there, you can do a two year nursing apprenticeship to get to the band 5 nurse role. Not sure how many of these routes are actually around though.