Hi everyone , what is everyone's thoughts on the reported 1 % pay rise for our courageous front line nurses who put there life's on the line to save others , personally I think it's a kick in the teeth. Clive x 🤗
Nurses pay rise: Hi everyone , what is... - Positive Wellbein...
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Nurses pay rise
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Thank you Clive😊
They deserve a lot more.. Clive x 🤗
absolutely ......brav.....o......clive
It's disgusting, especially when you consider that Dominic Cummings got a 40% pay rise and that was 40% of a much, much bigger amount.
The 1% offer is shameful
It's an absolute disgrace Clive, the government should be ashamed but they're not and they won't be either. Hope your head and neck are better by the way. x
Just a point I would like to make. Nurses and Doctors while doing the most fantastic job on the front line have been paid extra hours and overtime during the pandemic. Before people frown at my post, I can put my hand up and say that yes, I think that they deserve a pay rise, s significant one.
However, critical care nurses and other specialities have been inticed with extra pay to come to work in their days off due to staff shortages. At times this meant that some critical care nurses were taking £360 home per day.
Most of my friends are either critical care doctors or nurses and while they want to be recognised for their hard work, they equally appreciate that so many in the country are now unemployed. One of my friends said to me a few months ago, "yeah, the situation is **** but at least I have a job and they've even authorised overtime so I'm raking it in. I'm earning so I'm lucky."
I personally think this is a very selfless view. Despite the danger that the NHS staff have out themselves in they are still aware of suffering further afield.
I know that plenty of my friends felt grateful but also guilty for all of the food/treats and meals that were being sent into them when they received a pay cheque each month, yet others were queueing at food banks and struggling to feed their families due to redundancies and financial hardship, which in some cases led to suicide attempts putting further pressure on the NHS.
So in my view do they deserve something more than a 1% payrise? Of course but it should not have taken a pandemic to realise this and maybe after all the extra overtime that has been paid then the coffers are empty? It's a sad situation but they certainly deserve more than 1%. I also question how many NHS staffs relatives and dependants who have lost their lives to Covid will be paid their "death in duty" sum. How will it be proven that they contracted covid at work?
Secondly, after speaking to the NHS that I know, they have felt guilt at all the benefits that they have received, knowing that they can afford food. Some would have been more comfortable for the food to have gone to help feed families in crisis
I can only speak from my experience and discussion with my mates. But basically,however bad the situation is they have been grateful to have a job and be paid alot extra than normal.
(The majority of my friends are in critical care or porters/cleaners doing overtime so I can only speak for them).
But it's just something to think about in my opinion.
I think the issue of nurses pay was around long before Covid. It’s merely brought it to the fore. Any extra payment for staff doing extra shifts would pale in to insignificance compared to the payments that have had to been made to agency nurses to cover shifts over the years due to the number of trained nurses leaving the NHS. Surely retaining staff is the key here and perhaps giving us a pay rise that’s above insulting would help with that? I can tell you it’s rather galling when you work alongside someone on a 12 hour shift in a high acute specialist ward and discover not only are they being paid three times as much as you but they don’t have the skills necessary so you may as well work on your own. There appears to be an underlying assumption that nursing is a vocation rather than a career and I believe it is this historical viewpoint that has shaped things. I believe the way forward lies in recruitment and retaining.
It does and paying student nurses not them having to pay out to go to uni I know people who would love to train but with kids to feed can't afford to loose a wage. Here in Lincolnshire uni in Lincoln so people can be travelling 30 miles or more to get there and hospital placements can be as far away again.
You're preaching to the converted. I was ED and crit care. I would get sent agency nurses to work a 13 HR shift in ED and they didn't have the skill set but got paid at least 3 times more than me. And if you're in charge, you're accountable for their actions. Talk about stress! Basically it was quicker to do the work of two people than to each them, besides, like you say nursing is a career with vital skills. You can't just learn how to look after a trauma patient in 5 mins or learn how to suture by watching. These are vital skills that take months to hone.
Nurses have vital clinical skills and it needs recognising, as do they as individuals. Then maybe retention would be better. It's a vicious cycle at the moment I afraid.
That’s so true! I was once the only one on who could give IVs through Hickmans to 12 people and the agency nurse felt so guilty she could only stand and watch. No break for me that night. All needs a big shake up, doesn’t it? I bet you and I could write a good book between us😂
One night shift Inwad working in a level 1 ED. We had 5 agency shifts working. We looked up their rates per hour and worked out that between the 5 of them they took home £1500. Which, as I am sure you know is a salary that a newly qualified nurse would have earnt in a month. And that was before the agency charged their fees. Yet these nurses couldn't do A-E assessment, X-ray, couldn't listen to chests, insert IVs, plaster or suture. They just did obs which a more than capable HCA could do. It's maddening.
At the time of my leaving I know that a certain agency was offering £100/HR to run a shift.
But what can the hospitals do? They need nurses on the shop floor to be legally covered at capacity but the managers know it's all a paperwork excersise because the names might be on the work list in "the numbers" but everyone knows that the skill mix isn't there.
My daughter in law was and is working on a Covid Ward,not ICU.SHe has been drained by12 hour shifts,being made to feel guilty b cause she would t / couldn’t work extra shifts All the time. ( she has 3 children)
All her colleagues are suffering from mask related issuesto skin ears etc.
Rented £360 a day earned,no mention is made of tax,,
Superannuation and NI contribution.
This makes a hole in wages as any one knows.
I know stafff who have been made to feel guilty bytheir line manager asking/ begging them to do extra shifts.
This combined with shortage ofPPE.
Theywereandare scared of being infected, the guidelines around PPEare constantly changing,stressful in itself.
She described the toll of people dying from Covid and the effect it had on her.
One day she had sat with 3 people who were dying.
She’s used to death,but not the constant death toll that has happened.
If there’s no money it’s probably all gone to pay agency staff.( they dont get all the cash,it’s private companies)
Before. I retired,one memorable night Iworked with 7 agency staff.
There was trained member of staff on duty.shehad never set foot on the ward before.
The agency staff were brilliant,they worked on the ward regularly and were good.
The issue was that I was the only regular member of staff,so effectively had to induct the staff nurse and enable her to safely administer drugs and care for patients.
I wrote most of the notes and an incident form,due to the fact thatI knew the patients.
At the end of rhe shift and several times during it,the staff nurse described me as her rock.
I felt like a crumbling rock.
Nothing changes it seems. Perhaps this awfulness will see a shift? Something has to change. The cynic in me thinks that the NHS is slowly being eroded to make way for privatisation. I was moved by what you wrote and how it has affected your daughter. One of my very senior colleagues totally broke down after one night of so many patients dying, some of them only in their 30s, and she is now a patient herself in a mental health unit.
You paint a worrying picture. I should have mentioned that my friend was taking £360 home after tax and reductions but she is filtration trained as well as EcHMO. I think that the ICU teams in some hospitals are getting more incentives than others.
I know the guilt that you speak off all too well. I got burn out after doing 6 13h shifts straight then they twisted my arm into 8 nights back to back after one day off. That's when o got sick and eventually literally collapsed. The thing is, they make it so impossible for you to say "no" and to call in sick is frowned upon.
I hope your D.I.L manages to keep her spirits up as best as possible. It sounds like she is doing an amazing job. I know that carefirst are busy helping bthe NHS teams and I hope that she can make full use of any resources available to her.
I would like to also say that despite my previous post about agency nurses, some have been absolutely fabulous. They seem to be either really dynamic, show initiative and just get on with it. Or totally the opposite. It's very hot and miss but it's the bill for the agency work that is the crime.
Thank you.iagreevwith you about the agency nurse bill.iwas in our local general hospital overnight last year.The agency nurse made sure my drip didn’t run through,she turned it off.
I outwitted her though,I turned it back on,they were looking for her in the night.she managed to blag a 2 hour break. It’s people like her that give them all a bad name.
Sir Tom Moore raised £32 million what will it be used for ? Could always give the nurses bonus of say £200 each and ask government to match it
It is interesting that NHS Scotland are able to give all their staff a bonus. Some of my colleagues are unable to work again because of succumbing to CV-19 caught from their work environment and the long lasting effects on their physical and mental well being means they’ve had to give up jobs they loved. I guess we won’t truly know the full impact until it’s all over. For me it’s about the disparity - drive to Durham for an eye test during lockdown and you are rewarded with a £40,000 pay rise😅
Of course NHS workers deserve a better pay rise. They have been underpaid and exploited for years, especially support workers such as porters, cleaners etc. Contracting out key services has not helped either. This government has wasted billions of pounds on things that don't work; time to spend money on things that do.
Thanks for all your comments , I will tell you why I feel it is pittance is because my wife nearly died in hospital doing the job she loved and it was taken away from her..Clive x 🤗
That's so sad Clive you don't just loose a job you loose something you loved doing. Hope she's doing well now
I so sorry to to hear that Clive. I have a very similar story. I got sick fr a patient and landed up very unwell which triggered severe auto-immune conditions which has meant that I was medically retired as a senior nurse ay 36. It's a way of life, a band of brothers (and sisters) and it's clear that we don't just do it for the money.Best to your wife.
H. T. That’s what happened to me! Caught a virus that put me in hospital and it took me 10 months to recover. Triggered autoimmune disease which I live with and let’s be honest, you’re never the same again. I had to be moved to a less strenuous role- was lead nurse- and now work part time with flexible hours but I know I’ve been incredibly fortunate to get back to work at all. Would you believe I caught CV-19 in the first wave when I attended fit mask training😂 You really can only see the irony here. The thing is though it really gets in your blood, nursing. It must have been devastating when you had to retire and with all your knowledge and skills, it was a huge loss to the NHS.
Disgusting but never mind HMRC have got 13% over 3 years. Cummings got 40%!
I agree. Medical staff have worked above and beyond for so long to fight this Pandemic, that the award, basically, is an insult. Some have died, and some have been burned out, or caught Covid and are now incapable of work.
I think a bonus would be great.I do appreciate the country can't afford a huge pay rise for nurses but I think a bit more might have been accepted by them.This is stingy in my view in view of what we're going through.... we're not out of the woods yet.😔
It's a kick in the teeth and the guts, MP's should give them their rises. Let's face it their raise is more than some nhs staffs pay to start with. I signed a petition on change.org I think it was so check it out
Two words: abysmal ridiculous
I think the 15% is unreasonable Ajay and unachievable. But it needs to be more than 1%.
Your friend who is on 40k, I bet their duties, job role and responsibilities are very demanding and if they worked with the equivalent responsibilities in the private sector they would get twice that and half the workload.
I used to think when I was newly qualified and we were on about 17k a year, "if I put one wrong unit of blood up by accident trying to get all my work done, then I could kill someone." Hence, check, check, check!
Who else would have that sort of responsibility for 17k?
I have signed several petitions about this and also written to my MP. We have to take a stand
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