Nurses striking

[anotheronebitesthedust.1]

Can I just ask why people choose to go into nursing these days? Genuine question. It is well known that nurses and all health care professionals are underpaid and underworked. Is there a higher calling? Honestly I would rather work in Aldi for more money and less stress

Sometimes it’s personal reasons . For me I spent 6 months in iccu when I was a teenager so for me it was given something back and now I’m a ward manager of iccu because of Patient insight

wheni have student nurses and I ask them , it ranges from caring for relatives so they know what to do that as a job and go it back ,from Being a patient themselves , interests in specific fields , being that person to speak up for vulnerable people when they havenobody

 

[cee-bee]

I mentioned my husband because he is a retail manager on the same pay. He has been in his career for over 10 years, he’s not striking he’s just grateful for a job. He works 40-50 hours a week for no extra pay, a poor pension and be if it. Retail jobs are not as easy to come by as you think now a days. Redundancy is always around the corner.

That’s a problem though. In a progressive age, no one should work at XYZ for 10 years and then feel “grateful” to be employed. No one should be constantly a risk of redundancy. Your husband has ten years of valuable experience but no doubt his corporate bosses have made him feel like his is disposable to keep him “in his place”.

it’s a tactic I observed being adopted in the retail industry after the financial crash. Make workers feel disposable, make them feel like there’s never any money, that the buisness is just about keeping afloat and they are extending a favour to their employees just keeping them in a job. Keep reshuffling roles every so often so they are never offered any stability, so their contracts are always changing to slightly less favourable ones.

In reality - move to a head office/corporate role and all of a sudden that rhetoric vanishes. It’s intentional messaging to make retail workers feel grateful and beholden to their employer. To prevent them striking. And judging by your husbands position it’s working very well.

 

[Polythene Pam]

That's the same private sector that funds nurses with taxation money.

Public sector workers also pay tax you know. It's not solely funded by private sector workers. Such an irrelevant point.
We also fund a subsidised bar in the Houses of Parliament and we pay MP salaries while they are on constant holidays or in the jungle. No one seems to be complaining about that.

 

[judgejohndeed]

I agree with a some of what you said until you said top band fives moan as they’ve reached their skill set and should move up. I don’t want to work up to being a manger or to lead people. I’m skilled and good at my job. To move up you have to interview for the role and then comes extra responsibility. The whole system needs a revamp those working as top band five in a&e and more specialised areas should be paid more for their skills compared to someone working in outpatients. I might want to stay a band five, Graduates of other careers don’t have to stay stagnant and be forced into managerial roles if they don’t want to as the pay rises come in. I don’t want to manage people. I’d like a bit more money to pay my rent and bills without having to rely on extra shifts.

I disagree. In pretty much all jobs you either need to gain new and more difficult skills to gain a payrise, or move into management, why should nursing be different? If you're a retail assistant and you don't want to be a manager, you don't get paid more just because you've worked as a retail assistant for 15 years? If I want my fees to increase, I can't be doing the same kinds of cases I did 5 years ago. Doctors progressing up their payscale learn more and more difficult skills. The actual band 5 job you're doing doesn't change by job description when you've done it for 5, 10, 15 years so the idea that you should get more money just for doing it longer is wild tbh, I can't think of any other industries where this would happen. There are also other specialist nursing roles at band 6+, it isn't only management. If you've chosen an area where you stagnate at a band 5 without becoming management and you want more money, then the obvious/sensible thing to do would be to change specialism.

I think this kind of thing is why so many people don't support the strikes tbh. It comes across as 'I want more money but no harder work and no more responsiblity' - well, don't we all.

 

[Yel]

central London where I think you’d struggle to find anything that would cost less than £1000/£1200 a month in rent or mortgage

And that is the root of the problem.

It's not really about nurses but that society as a whole has got worse off as house price and rent have been allowed to spiral out of control. There's been a huge transfer of wealth over the past few decades.

Now the era of cheap money, cheap food and reasonable priced energy is over the problems that have been building up are all bubbling over.

The whole thing needs fundamental change,.

 

[Emsie]

This is actually a thread about opinions on the nurses strike which everyone is giving.
Whilst a degree isn't negative, it is a barrier. If the NHS needs more nurses, then alternative methods to qualifying could be looked at. Lots of other professions have done this with a decent level of success.
My understanding is that nurses have been offered around 4 percent. That is probably a bit low. I don't think anyone has a problem with nurses getting a payrise in general but 19 per cent is too much. Whilst I appreciate the need to go in high and negotiate down if this had been pitched around 9 or 10 per cent there would probably be a lot more support for it and they'd probably end up with it.
Being held to ransom because we need nurses so much and they are so overworked and stressed out just doesn't sit well with an overworked and stressed out workforce and it's where it's losing favour imo. If nurses want more people on side the attitude needs to soften. I don't have a never ending supply of respect for professions and after a while I do start think aaah shut up now.

 

[theweelesbian]

Nah, mate. I’f probably end up lumping you. Again thinking you are the only people doing difficult jobs under pressure.

Thank god you’re not a nurse with that delightful attitude. Let’s hope if you end up needing any kind of care in hospital that you treat the staff with far more respect than you’ve shown here

 

[Polythene Pam]

I think one of the mistakes those in charge of how this is pushed out to the public and media is making this all about pay. Reading comments on here from nurses and being around people who work for the NHS I think there’s more to it that would give more support and make people think about it more.
Comments on here and things I’ve seen from my family in the NHS, show that staffing is low to the point of being dangerous. My sister works in a diagnostic role- her lists are so long she barely has time to reassure people before having a serious procedure, there’s so few staff that they’re operating below the staff ratio they should be on a daily basis.

I might be being naive but I think positioning it as striking for safety, working conditions and resource problems with increasing pay as a solution is something easier for the public to digest and understand. There’s not many professions (at least not mine) where you can say “hey, my entire team want a pay rise because we can’t live on this money/ we work really hard and deserve a pay increase ” - you’d have to jump through the hoops of proving why you deserve it (and this isn’t my saying nurses don’t, just that when it comes to pay in most industries it is tactical). But something people can get behind and understand is “hey, things are really unsafe- we don’t have enough people, everyone is over worked and less and less people are joining us as a career- we think if the profession was more attractive (pay and benefits) then we can prevent this becoming a bigger issue”. At the moment it just plays into the governments and top dogs hands- demonises NHS workers, the general public fight with eachother instead of challenging the government about how things have got to this point.

The media have positioned it as being all about pay. Same with royal mail and the trains. The crux of the issue is terms and conditions.
The ambulance service is undoubtedly about safety too. Anyone who knows anyone that's needed an ambulance knows that. My aunt fell and cracked her head open in the middle of winter and we had to scrape her off the ground ourselves and take her to hospital, even though moving someone with a head injury isn't advised. She would've frozen to death waiting for a first responder.
It's truly fucking bleak out there.

I think one of the mistakes those in charge of how this is pushed out to the public and media is making this all about pay. Reading comments on here from nurses and being around people who work for the NHS I think there’s more to it that would give more support and make people think about it more.
Comments on here and things I’ve seen from my family in the NHS, show that staffing is low to the point of being dangerous. My sister works in a diagnostic role- her lists are so long she barely has time to reassure people before having a serious procedure, there’s so few staff that they’re operating below the staff ratio they should be on a daily basis.

I might be being naive but I think positioning it as striking for safety, working conditions and resource problems with increasing pay as a solution is something easier for the public to digest and understand. There’s not many professions (at least not mine) where you can say “hey, my entire team want a pay rise because we can’t live on this money/ we work really hard and deserve a pay increase ” - you’d have to jump through the hoops of proving why you deserve it (and this isn’t my saying nurses don’t, just that when it comes to pay in most industries it is tactical). But something people can get behind and understand is “hey, things are really unsafe- we don’t have enough people, everyone is over worked and less and less people are joining us as a career- we think if the profession was more attractive (pay and benefits) then we can prevent this becoming a bigger issue”. At the moment it just plays into the governments and top dogs hands- demonises NHS workers, the general public fight with eachother instead of challenging the government about how things have got to this point.

The media have positioned it as being all about pay. Same with royal mail and the trains. The crux of the issue is terms and conditions.
The ambulance service is undoubtedly about safety too. Anyone who knows anyone that's needed an ambulance knows that. My aunt fell and cracked her head open in the middle of winter and we had to scrape her off the ground ourselves and take her to hospital, even though moving someone with a head injury isn't advised. She would've frozen to death waiting for a first responder.

Government have a month to discuss pay again before we strike again twice end of January

I'm with you 100%

 

[cee-bee]

I've had a 20% payrise in the last two years. Employment doesn't have to be on crappy terms and for crappy pay just because we live in the UK, there's a war, there was a pandemic, etc etc etc. It's literally all propaganda designed to keep you down.

exactly this.

If someone is reading and thinking they’ve got it hard at work, no prospect of pay rises etc.

then expecting nurses, who are maybe paid more than them - to just suck it up… is categorically wrong in my eyes.

they should be questioning why they have it so badly, and how they can improve it, how they can unionise. Not just throwing the towel in and expecting other professions to do the same.

 

[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

 

[Eltonjohnsflorist]

It’s not up to you to decide what’s irrelevant. Nurses are leaving in their droves because of poor pay and can obviously transfer their skills to other countries.

 

[Emsie]

I'm not convinced that increasing a salary is going to make young people want to become nurses. The world has evolved so much that these types of roles aren't encouraged. Young people don't want to be be nurses, or teachers, or social workers. They want to be podcast hosts, travel bloggers, influencers.
Increasing a salary may help slightly, but it isn't the only answer.
I don't agree with the rhetoric that it's a calling, the government use that excuse to make it seem like it's your fault you're a nurse but surely there has to be some degree of calling?! I would never want to be a nurse and no amount of salary would change my mind on that.
Why is everyone so against the NHS being privatised (genuine question) .... It's current format doesn't appear to work and like any business surely you have to look at what can be changed or done?!

 

[popb1tch]

But no one's pay has gone up with the cost of living crisis... This is the bit I don't get.
Everyone works hard and everyone believes they should be paid more.
I don't know anyone who has had a pay rise in line with inflation. We're all struggling not just nurses

And everyone should strike

 

[Yel]

The problem with nurse shortages is nothing unique to the UK. Exactly the same is happening in the states with permy nurses leaving to do freelance, often in the same hospital. All a bit like the locum issue in the UK.

The NHS is a bit of a cult. It needs reform and the people immediately jumping to assume any kind of reform would the US system are part of the problem.

Another big problem is a whole generation has underpaid taxes and now thanks to modern medicine people are living longer, but with complicated and expensive health issues. Reform should have come decades ago.

The gold rush for travel nurses is over. Now what will they do?

During the Covid pandemic, nurses tripled their pay by moving from job to job. But the short-lived boom was a temporary fix for a long-term decline in the nursing profession.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[cee-bee]

I think there have definitely been a few posts which make nurses sound like they are the worst off and deserve the most though and that sort of attitude understandably doesn't receive good reactions. We've also really have been hearing about how nurses have it bad and deserve more frequently since COVID, and even before then NHS staff would be praised highly, so it's easy to see how everything is getting a bit messed up when everyone is facing difficulty

But… it’s a thread about the nurses strike…

not a “everyone is facing difficulty” thread.

a thread about nurses, in which inevitably people discuss why nurses are striking.

why on Earth would anyone interpret this as somehow being sympathetic to nurses more than others? Or thinking nurses deserve a pay rise and no one else does…? That’s illogical?

why would anyone come on a thread about a nurses strike and then feel indignant that we aren’t discussing how bad everyone else has it?!

I fully support that their working conditions and pay is appalling however I do not support strikes.

We need to go back, no more needing a degree, more hands on paid training and much better pay. Free parking, on-site nurseries etc.Get rid of big bosses, paper pushers, they also need to bring back convalescent homes to make hospitals run better.

Hearing that the Scottish have reject a 11% rise is madness. Where do they think this money tree is c

no disrespect intended but your post shows a lot of ignorance about how the NHS operates.

1. why is a degree negative? Why get rid of that? It professionalises nursing and ensures appropriate, standardised training.
2. Big bosses/pen pushers - unpopular but, organisations need “big bosses”, they need corporate roles to function. You don’t expect nurses to fill out procurement forms for food for example? Or expect nurses to make decisions like financial budgeting and forecasting? When procuring outside services, should nurses be the ones negotiating with organisations to get favourable deals?
3. convalescent homes exist, they just aren’t called that.
4. You’ve misunderstood the 11% figure and what it means. Taken from the gov.uk Website:

“For the lowest paid this represents an uplift of 11.3%, and delivers an average uplift of 7.5%.”

freeing up of beds isn’t so much a hospital problem, it’s a wider public services problem.

for example, doctors can’t release elderly patients until they are sure there’s been an assessment done on their home if they need one. But cuts to social services means this can take a long time to happen, so they stay in a hospital bed which costs what, £600 a night?

pumping money into the NHS will only go so far if it isn’t being invested into peripheral services.

 

[Warriorqueen]

I thought it wasn’t about pay? Isn’t it about the conditions? Aren’t all these strikes for us little people who use the nhs? Must be mistaken

It’s about enticing new nurses so you ‘little people’ get the care you need. Sorry we are standing up for ourselves and our patients. I’m burnt out.
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No we shouldn't. My anger is directed at the following:
1. Nurses earning 33k but "forced to use food banks" when people earning less are not using foodbanks.
2. Nurses who "have a degree but would better off stacking shelves" go stack the shelves then Hun, or is it beneath you
3. Nurses who are striking for me. You're striking for you.
4. Real terms paycuts that are actually payrises
5. "I worked in the pandemic" so did the people in Aldi that are beneath you
6. I work sooooo hard. We all do.
The emotive blackmailing around the nurses strikes has been terrible. No other profession uses this type of language.
And now, they've had their payrise, they've had their second payrise, and a lump sum and I've seen posts saying that not all nurses should get it just the ones that worked through the pandemic. Fucking hell, grow up!

That chip must be heavy. Blocked you by the way hun as I want to keep my membership on tattle. You’re vile.
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It’s leaving a bitter taste in peoples mouths because all these strikes seem to be about pay, RMT, Royal Mail, Doctors etc is just pay pay pay, the services for all these sectors at first glance are fucking shocking
The trains are knackered, expensive and constantly delayed
Royal Mail aren’t fit for purpose and our postie comes about twice a week
Doctors want more pay but you can’t get an appointment or
even keep your appointment without it being cancelled

Rational thought obv prevails and will show different issues contributing to this and hopefully pay rises will sort it out, but without actually looking into it all it shows to the public is that a group of people on over £30k a year during a cost of living crisis are crying poverty. I don’t even see how the unions are surprised at the amount of people being annoyed at strikes

I knew it would come. I estimated March when you would all turn on us. Proved right. And I earn £27k, don’t use a foodbank but burnt out doing the job of 3 people.

 

[Polythene Pam]

Wait whaaat? So retail workers can absolutely live on minimum wage but a nurse cannot live on approx 33k and uses a foodbank?! Make it make sense for the love of god.

Did I say that? I don't think I did!
Nurses have had a real terms pay cut for 10 years. Retail workers have not.
Do you think they should be paid the same? Surely jobs with vastly different entry requirements and responsibilities should be paid differently.

Comparing the two salaries isn't really as straightforward as it seems either. Those on minimum wage are often entitled to UC top up for rent, childcare etc. Nurses aren't.
My family are surviving off £33k at the moment (£2k take home) while I'm on mat leave. Our household bills are more than we bring in ans we're not entitled to any help.
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A large, blanket pay rise is unfeasible with the insane occupational sick pay and pensions, it’s not like a pay rise in the private sector it’s factoring in all those other benefits that barely get mentioned. If they bring those in line with reality then they’d have a better chance but they won’t and it’s unsustainable. There was a nurse in the news recently who’s been off on full pay since 2020. Try your luck at that in retail or anywhere else.

There must be exceptional circumstances. Usual NHS sick pay is 6 months full and 6 months half.
Aviva pay full pay for a year, and many other private companies have decent policies too.

 

[Eltonjohnsflorist]

And here lies the problem. The NHS won’t collapse if those who are unhappy with the profession leave, despite the obviously inflated opinion you have of nurses. There will be other nurses who stay for the right reasons. Nurses who don’t want to put vulnerable people at risk by striking (I know who I’d rather have looking after me). What a very high opinion you have to think that there’ll be ‘no nurses to look after people’ if the ones who aren’t happy leave Let’s clap some more pots eh?

This makes no sense. There is a massive shortage of nurses, a shortage of new ones coming out of uni and the ones who are qualified leaving in record numbers. As you can see from the protests, huge numbers of the remaining nurses are unhappy in their jobs. The ones you think should just all leave.

I don’t even understand your point. Do you have one?

 

[Nounoupat]

Reading that article made me cry these are truly the things the nhs go thou each day I am a hca in a hospital when u have 6 people climbing out of bed 2 on end life you have multiple discharges that your have to go thou the things with check there body maps family members asking questions bed pans every 5 minutes being verbal attack but they got dementia and your short staffed it’s mentally exhausting and physically everyone who says the nhs shouldn’t strike I ask you to spend a day with us and experience us trying to do our best but we are so short we cant

 

[ShadesMint]

I’m a nurse working on a ward, I have been qualified just over a year and feel stressed and exhausted constantly. I have never struggled with mental health but I now struggle sleeping, I’m losing weight and feel down all the time. I used to be a receptionist before deciding to do my nursing degree and wish I never made that choice. If I could turn back time I would choose literally any other degree. I’m still young only 24 so currently looking for any graduate schemes. It’s so sad, I am all for the strike however whatever pay rise they offer simply won’t magic more nurses into the system which is what we need. I’m not surprised nobody wants to do it.

Get off the wards ASAP. Figure out what you want to specialise in and do that instead. I did. My mental health improved 1000%
I work in an outpatient day case unit now. No nights and the unit closes at 6pm. On call on weekends on a rota basis. It's busy so the day goes by really quickly, but hardly any stress. I'm very lucky. And there's so much to learn about the speciality I work in as well so I'm not bored. It took me several job changes to get here but there is a job out there for you. You have to remember why you chose nursing in the first place.
If I knew what nursing was really like I'd never have chosen it for a career though. I've been qualified 8 years now and it's never too late for a career change they say, but it's easier said than done when you're paying high rent, have dependents and a stable income.