Nurses across UK vote to strike in first ever national action

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Jenny65 said:
maybe they can increase income tax to 25% but start with a threshold of 20k - that way the lower earners will have more disposable income
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That sounds good initially.
But if you earn £19999, that's what you take home.
If you earn £20,001, you suddenly take home £17,500.
The "banded" company I worked at also had another wrinkle.
One band rise took the overtime, and the enhancements off the table.
That made up several thousands of pounds to me, and replaced it with about £300.
I resisted the band rise all the time I was there, and moved up on my condition I kept my existing band!
 
I worked for 35 years in education at the highest point on the pay band for my role as a Senior Technical Demonstrator and was on £36000 for what was often a 60 hour week.
 
travellor said:
That sounds good initially.
But if you earn £19999, that's what you take home.
If you earn £20,001, you suddenly take home £17,500.
The "banded" company I worked at also had another wrinkle.
One band rise took the overtime, and the enhancements off the table.
That made up several thousands of pounds to me, and replaced it with about £300.
I resisted the band rise all the time I was there, and moved up on my condition I kept my existing band!
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surely the 25% would only be on 1 pound though
 
travellor said:
£22338 in 2010?
And now paid £300 a month more.
So £25938 a year now.

According to nurses.co.uk a newly trained nurse starts on a basic of £27055, before any enhancements, band rises, or further training.
Maybe there is a reason his wife only let him see a ten year old payslip.
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I'm guessing he meant take home pay is £300 a month more. Which means more tax and pension so gross pay will be a tad bit higher.
 
travellor said:
That's around £35000 a year salary?

Amazon claim £15 an hour but no guarantee you will get any constant work, no pension, no holiday pay, provide your own vehicle and be responsible for tax, insurance, maintenance, so in reality an awful lot less.

The NHS provide
Enhanced pay for unsociable hours – between 30% and 60% above standard rate for night shifts, weekends and bank holidays
A very generous final salary Pension Scheme.
27 days’ holiday per year, plus bank holidays
Free access to occupational health and counselling support
Six months full pay and six months half pay for sick leave
Generous maternity and paternity leave.

I would say if you do struggle to live on that salary, and can walk into a job paying £40,000+ a year, with those benefits, you'd be mad not to.

But, the main issue that may be on the horizon is mass privatisation, which may be an ideal tool for the government to justify using at this time, if strikes do cause the massive disruption that mean everything past and future will be blamed on.
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The £35k average will be including the unsocial hours element.

And you only get unsocial hours pay if you work them, a large percentage of the community nursing workforce, plus most of the hospital clinic staff nurses, don't work unsocial hours usually.

The NHS haven't provided a final salary scheme for many years - some of the older staff members may still have part of their pensions in a final salary scheme, but the vast majority of current staff are in an averaged salary scheme, and the 2008 and 2015 schemes don't include a routine lump sum either.

If you're looking for what equivalent private sector qualified jobs pay, don't forget that the majority of newly qualified staff nurses (band 5+) have a degree, and almost all specialist nurses (band 6+) do, and there is talk of requiring a masters for some that currently require a bachelors. In most private industries, you might start on a similar wage with a degree, but you would be likely to move up to a higher salary and leave degree qualified nurses and paramedics way below your final salary before retirement.
 
42istheanswer said:
The £35k average will be including the unsocial hours element.

And you only get unsocial hours pay if you work them, a large percentage of the community nursing workforce, plus most of the hospital clinic staff nurses, don't work unsocial hours usually.

The NHS haven't provided a final salary scheme for many years - some of the older staff members may still have part of their pensions in a final salary scheme, but the vast majority of current staff are in an averaged salary scheme, and the 2008 and 2015 schemes don't include a routine lump sum either.

If you're looking for what equivalent private sector qualified jobs pay, don't forget that the majority of newly qualified staff nurses (band 5+) have a degree, and almost all specialist nurses (band 6+) do, and there is talk of requiring a masters for some that currently require a bachelors. In most private industries, you might start on a similar wage with a degree, but you would be likely to move up to a higher salary and leave degree qualified nurses and paramedics way below your final salary before retirement.
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Nope.
The average salary is 35k.
So that's including, or discluding enhancements.
Either way, how do you want to pay the rise?
I'm thinking my preference is to pay as I go, not raise my taxes.
So privatise the nursing services, and charge me as I need them.
 
42istheanswer said:
The £35k average will be including the unsocial hours element.

And you only get unsocial hours pay if you work them, a large percentage of the community nursing workforce, plus most of the hospital clinic staff nurses, don't work unsocial hours usually.

The NHS haven't provided a final salary scheme for many years - some of the older staff members may still have part of their pensions in a final salary scheme, but the vast majority of current staff are in an averaged salary scheme, and the 2008 and 2015 schemes don't include a routine lump sum either.

If you're looking for what equivalent private sector qualified jobs pay, don't forget that the majority of newly qualified staff nurses (band 5+) have a degree, and almost all specialist nurses (band 6+) do, and there is talk of requiring a masters for some that currently require a bachelors. In most private industries, you might start on a similar wage with a degree, but you would be likely to move up to a higher salary and leave degree qualified nurses and paramedics way below your final salary before retirement.
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Of course they have a lump sum, up to 25%.
Ok, I agree it's an average of the last couple of years, but only because some were promoted to a gazillion pounds for the last week.
 
The NHS has been deliberately underfunded for the past 12 years, to make it look as though it can't cope (that's something the Tories have managed to get to work, at least :( ) Under Labour, the NHS got 6% average uplift each year, under the Tories average is around 1.5% :( There is plenty of money around to pay for public services, it's a political choice. There is a huge amount of untaxed wealth in the country. We may be in the top 7 richest countries in the world, but the inequality is the widest of any of our peer nations - it has been described as a poor country with a lot of rich people in it :(
At my diagnosis I witnessed first hand just how hard NHS staff work - it blew my mind how kind and caring they were, despite the tremendous workload, and the fact they have been hugely underpaid for over a decade is shameful. Every Conservative who applauded them on a Thursday night is a total hypocrite :( No working person should have need of a food bank to survive :(
Let's just stop and imagine for a moment how that £50 billion hole that Truss created might have been spent. Or the many £billions handed out to fraudsters and government cronies during the pandemic. This government is moribund. The cabinet shows just how eviscerated their party has become as it has moved further and further to the right, with the consequence that someone like Truss can implement such disastrous cloud cuckoo land policies :(
 
travellor said:
Of course they have a lump sum, up to 25%.
Ok, I agree it's an average of the last couple of years, but only because some were promoted to a gazillion pounds for the last week.
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No, your info is out of date about old pension schemes which are no longer open to be added to. I will not get any lump sum unless I sacrifice income. And I will get an average of my whole NHS employment not the last couple of years
 
My middle daughter started as an associate nurse a couple of months ago. She’s obviously on an apprentice wage but the hours, the physical and mental draining not to mention the abuse she has received make me worry if she has made the right decision. She started working in the kitchens and progressed as she just wants to help people, but I can see the light fading from her eyes for the job
 
42istheanswer said:
No, your info is out of date about old pension schemes which are no longer open to be added to. I will not get any lump sum unless I sacrifice income. And I will get an average of my whole NHS employment not the last couple of years
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Not quite.
The new scheme?
You earn a pension based annually on your salary.
Which is then re- evalued each year until retirement, so it grows a percentage each year until you retire.
That's is very advantageous if you choose to move into a less senior/stressful job for a few years before you retire, as the accrued pension from previous jobs is locked is, and guaranteed to rise annually no matter when you take it.

It's a 54ths scheme, which is very generous, as most private sector pensions used to be 60ths or 80ths, until they all mostly changed to the "workplace" pension at best.
Even other public sector schemes are mostly 60ths at best.

Every pension scheme is a salary sacrifice to pay for the lump sum.
This scheme is £12 for £1, which is good.

It's completely guaranteed as long as their is a tax payer left in the UK, it's not an investment based product, it's simply taken straight out of the public's pocket and paid into your bank.

It's also guaranteed to be increased annually by the CPI, so if you are drawing your pension now it will increase by 10.1% in April.

I can't see many refusing that if it was offered to them
 
Shroedinger’s nurse: Simultaneously too important to strike, but not important enough to pay properly.
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everydayupsanddowns said:
Shroedinger’s nurse: Simultaneously too important to strike, but not important enough to pay properly.
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I firmly believe no one should be forced to work, everyone should have the right to strike, even the police, who currently can't by law.
Then again, if this prime minister can find the £5 billion a year asked for to resolve the strike, it'll be an interesting time as it ripples through all public offices.

The other consideration, if he can spend that sort of money, which is about the same as the cost of using bank nurses across all the NHS, it may make more sense just to outsource all jobs, there is a lot of American money waiting to buy into the NHS, and it would most probably be more than enough to fill a good part of the financial black hole he has inherited.

It will also bring an ongoing saving to the public purse, of around half a billion pounds per year of future pension accruals if all nurses are moved out of the scheme into private companies and pensions.
Which is also increasing year on year, there was a 3.37% increase in Registered Nurses year-on-year for 2022.
 
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nonethewiser said:
Times are difficult & nurses deserve decent pay rise for job they do.
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They are difficult.
But not just for nurses.
The UK average salary is £31,772.

Teaching assistant, £17,500
Pharmacy dispensers, £18,800
Cleaners, £19,890
Cooks, £20,500
Hospital porters, £20,400.
Refuse collector, £22,500.
Paramedics, £33,000 so the same salary as a nurse, above the UK average.

Edit,
carers, the news article on BBC 1 now, minimum wage, unsurprisingly no one wants to do it now.

Do we all agree that the average wage should be increased to about the same £40,000 for all of these jobs, as a nurse with a child needs all these to support them to actually do their job?
Or just all jobs regardless, should there be a hierarchy?

Can we include pensions, as currently less than £10,000 is definitely making times difficult for pensioners?
Long term unemployed for medical reasons, times are certainly more difficult for them at the moment?
 
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Amity Island said:
Seems to be a long standing issue with peoples worth/value. Go camping in the jungle with some celebs for a few weeks and get paid hundreds of thousands. Wash and change an elderly patient and get paid a pittance.
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Not wrong there AI

Why pay these so called celebs so much, sure most would go there for nowt just to get back in limelight.

Perfectly honest can't stand those type of shows & have no interest in them whatsoever.
 
Have to say that for funding I find it very odd that nobody on this thread, as far as I can see, has suggested raising taxes more for extremely wealthy individuals and firms. Put a block on large scale tax avoidance schemes? Tax BP/Shell for the money they're making from increased prices due to Ukraine?

Are those really such extreme ideas?
 
Rob Oldfield said:
Have to say that for funding I find it very odd that nobody on this thread, as far as I can see, has suggested raising taxes more for extremely wealthy individuals and firms. Put a block on large scale tax avoidance schemes? Tax BP/Shell for the money they're making from increased prices due to Ukraine?

Are those really such extreme ideas?
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I think I mentioned earlier about the huge amount of untaxed wealth that there is in the country. The reason why it's not being taxed is that we've had a Tory government for 12 years and their donors and many of their members are the very people who would pay those taxes. Along with our very right-wing press, the narrative has built that it is 'benefits' and public sector wages that are too expensive, and the electorate has been too disengaged to understand they are being hoodwinked :(
 
Northerner said:
I think I mentioned earlier about the huge amount of untaxed wealth that there is in the country. The reason why it's not being taxed is that we've had a Tory government for 12 years and their donors and many of their members are the very people who would pay those taxes. Along with our very right-wing press, the narrative has built that it is 'benefits' and public sector wages that are too expensive, and the electorate has been too disengaged to understand they are being hoodwinked :(
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The University and College Union, followed by the teachers union next year will be striking,
and we've already had
Doctors
Solicitors
Rail and tube strikes
Royal Mail
Bus services
Refuse collection
BT
Airline and airport staff
Dockworkers

Most of these are privately owned companies, nothing to do with taxing the rich.
Just industries that still have large union representation in the work.
 
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