‘I’ve given all I can’: NHS staff on why they might quit (England)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Northerner

Northerner

Admin (Retired)
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
While the pandemic has led to record numbers of nurses and midwives working in the UK, the nursing regulator has warned that pressure on staff could lead to a significant exodus of frontline NHS staff.

With the government’s 1% pay offer being held up as the latest example of its lack of respect for the profession, five healthcare workers speak about why they are considering their positions.

‘I worry that the NHS is becoming a shadow of its former self’​

Alistair Ritchie, 34, advanced nurse practitioner in intensive care, east Midlands

“The pandemic itself was dreadful. We were all working flat out, extra hours, with fewer staff per patient and spending all of our time in PPE.

“The pay offer is derisory. It’s like leaving a 50p tip for a £50 meal. My colleagues deserve the world. We’ve already suffered through a decade of below-inflation pay rises while expectations have only increased. What makes it worse is that a greater amount had already been agreed in the original pay deal. Are we worth less now than we were before the pandemic?

www.theguardian.com

‘I’ve given all I can’: NHS staff on why they might quit

After the nursing regulator’s warning of an exodus, five healthcare staff describe their experiences
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
I agree with Mr Ritchie. A right slap round the kisser. If they'd awarded them what they'd already agreed NP. If they'd said we need to give them more and then said so everyone's going to need to pay us more income tax to fund it - we'd all have said OK, Boris. Don't mind as it's for them.
 
Sigh! Here we go again. More whining about pay rises when hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs and countless hundreds of thousands face redundancy when furlough ends.

This is just posturing. If they really intended to leave the NHS, they'd stop talking and do it. There's not a problem here until we see the mass exodus that they have warned us about.

Oh and playing the "we saved lives you know" card to get pay rise is unbelievably crass.

As a comparison, many of the people who created the vaccine which will actually get us out of all of this will be post doc researchers on fixed term poorly paid contracts and on dreadful terms and conditions. I haven't heard a peep of complaint from any of them.
 
There you go, two responses, one puts well one end of the argument and one puts equally well, the other. At the end of the day it ends up as a matter of opinion. And as the man said, opinions are like mouths, everybody has one....although he did not use mouths as his reference point.

What I find really annoying is politicians saying they support one end of the argument yet behaving as if they support the other.
 
Well true - someone else's GP nurse has advised them not to test BG cos it will only make her fingers sore. Quite happy meself if she only gets 1% ....... or nowt.
 
The pay offer is a pay cut - inflation is running at just over 1%. NHS Scotland gave their staff (which unlike England, includes cleaners, porters and such like) a 4% rise. Backdated. That, of course, wasn't enough to shame Johnson into making a similar announcement in England, and the press and BBC keep forgetting to mention it when the subject is discussed. All the English nurses got was a clap. You can't eat or feed your kids on gratitude.

And @pm133 saying that 'nurses saying "we saved lives" is unbelievably crass', is despicable, and insulting. They have helped to save lives, and hold people's hands as they died to give them some comfort. That takes skill and dedication. Even Johnson praised the nursing care he got in Intensive Care. Intensive care is a highly skilled nursing job, and he knows it.
 
mikeyB said:
And @pm133 saying that 'nurses saying "we saved lives" is unbelievably crass', is despicable, and insulting. They have helped to save lives, and hold people's hands as they died to give them some comfort. That takes skill and dedication. Even Johnson praised the nursing care he got in Intensive Care. Intensive care is a highly skilled nursing job, and he knows it.
Click to expand...
If you thought THAT was despicable and insulting, you really wouldn't have liked what I had originally planned to post. 🙂
 
Sad reading those accounts, spent 4 days in hospital last week & care & devotion from staff was second to none, from top to bottom all make the nhs what it is.

They need more facilities, support & above all else decent pay rise to show appreciation for the tremendous job they do. Thank goodness for our nhs.
 
pm133 said:
If you thought THAT was despicable and insulting, you really wouldn't have liked what I had originally planned to post. 🙂
Click to expand...
Gosh, does the PM in your name stand for Prime Minister? Come on, own up😎:D
 
So clearly the nursing unions are determined to take full advantage of the last year.

https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/w...ise-without-delay-ahead-of-budget-26-02-2021/

They are asking for a 12.5% pay rise.

12.5% !!!!

Apparently they are making this demand with straight faces. That it's remotely reasonable.

In Scotland, they are "furious" about a 4% pay offer - an offer the Royal College of Nursing urged its member to reject and the GMB union dismissed as a "pre-election punt".

The above article contains all manner of abuse of statistics to try and persuade a public they clearly believe are idiots, that they've been getting repeated pay cuts for years.

And, of course, just in case we see straight through that pack of lies, they play the emotional card and mention yet again that "Health workers have been battling the pandemic for a year. That's a year of incredibly long hours, heightened anxiety around the safety of family and friends, and fears about catching the virus." - their words, not mine. They obviously believe this kind of emotional manipulation of a grateful public will bear financial fruit or they wouldn't keep mentioning it at every possible opportunity in the context of pay rise discussions.

In all my years of employment I never once stooped to tactics like this to win a pay rise. I prefer to leave lying and manipulation to others.

I don't know though. Maybe the public do believe all of this talk of pay cuts and want to see massive tax rises to pay for this 12.5%. I'm not so sure.

A rise of between 1% and 4% is perfectly fair and reasonable in the current climate of mass redundancies elsewhere in the economy and I suspect that this is as good as they can expect.
 
mikeyB said:
The pay offer is a pay cut - inflation is running at just over 1%. NHS Scotland gave their staff (which unlike England, includes cleaners, porters and such like) a 4% rise. Backdated. That, of course, wasn't enough to shame Johnson into making a similar announcement in England, and the press and BBC keep forgetting to mention it when the subject is discussed. All the English nurses got was a clap. You can't eat or feed your kids on gratitude.

And @pm133 saying that 'nurses saying "we saved lives" is unbelievably crass', is despicable, and insulting. They have helped to save lives, and hold people's hands as they died to give them some comfort. That takes skill and dedication. Even Johnson praised the nursing care he got in Intensive Care. Intensive care is a highly skilled nursing job, and he knows it.
Click to expand...
The lower band grades are not as far behind as the higher bands due to a sliding scale of pay awards but in order to bring them up to where they were 10 years ago taking inflation into account they would need anything up to 20% pay rise depending on what band they are in. So in reality they will never catch up. I suppose the only consolation is they have a secure job but at what cost and don't forget they have paid to do their training and don't get paid when working on the hospital placements although I think they did as a result of COVID get something.
 
What @pm133 forgets, or doesn’t realise, is that NHS Scotland is entirely separate from NHS England. Nurses in Scotland have for some years been paid more than nurses in England. There is no agitation against the offer of 4%. And in Scotland, nursing bursaries in training were never removed. They are also to receive a £500 bonus for their efforts during the pandemic.

And his worry about rising taxes can be allayed easily. Recently, Rees-Mogg, Minister for the 18th Century, announced that the cost of repairing and improving the House of Commons would rise from the original estimate of £5bn to £20bn. A decent pay rise for nurses would cost less than a tenth of that. There will be no tax rises to keep our MPs in damp free comfort. Nor for the £100bn and rising cost of HS2. It’s only when it comes to NHS pay that the mantra of “we can’t afford it” or “massive” tax rises come into the discussion.

It all rather depends on what the government want to spend your money on.
 
Doesn't stop you being pissed off when they've been telling you for ages 'You'll get an increase of X% in April!' then when April comes say 'Here's 25% of X - just be grateful!'
 
trophywench said:
Doesn't stop you being pissed off when they've been telling you for ages 'You'll get an increase of X% in April!' then when April comes say 'Here's 25% of X - just be grateful!'
Click to expand...

True but that's an entirely different issue.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top