I think it is unique. The bombs are ticking across Europe but the bomb has gone off in the UK.
Spotted this comment elsewhere…
Over the next few weeks there will be a lot of bad press fired at nurses and many who work within the NHS. For those who don’t work in healthcare, I wanted to help give some facts and context in support of my nursing friends/colleagues:
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A nurses starting salary in the NHS will be £27,055.
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Nurses pay mandatory £120 for NMC registration to practice every year.
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Nurses pay between £200-500/yr in parking fees (depending on Trust) before even stepping through the front door.
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Nurses pay £15-£20/month for Union membership and professional indemnity.
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Nurses breaks are unpaid. They have 2x 30 minute breaks per long-day (13 hour shift) - if they can take them!
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After adjustment for inflation, despite the most recent pay deal, nurse’s real wages have dropped by £1583 on average per year since 2011. Nursing pay bands are worth an average 11% less than they were a decade ago.
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There are currently thousands of vacancies across the country for nursing jobs, due to years of underinvestment and under recruitment, costing approximately £6 billion/yr in expensive agency staff.
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An independent study found a 10% pay rise to nursing staff would pay for itself through greater tax income from higher wages, and by reducing the amount of student loans needing to be written off.
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Another study found for every extra patient a nurse is asked to look after beyond a safe amount, the risk of harm increases by 7%. I have often seen nurses looking after patients on a ratio of 12:1. A safe amount would be considered 5:1. Do the maths.
Nurses are not greedy. They worked through a grueling pandemic to keep you and your loved ones safe. Over 850 healthcare workers are estimated to have died over the pandemic. Nurses have lost colleagues and family members to COVID-19.
Please support nurses in the weeks to come and don’t listen to Government propaganda. The recent pay deal amounted to a pay cut in real terms. It is not right that a nurse (or anyone!) should be afraid to put on the heating, or be forced to go to a food bank to provide food for their families.
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Well said. Absolutely nurses are not greedy and have been treated as a vocation for as long as I can remember.
As I understand from a distance, it is not only about the salary per say. Yes, they need better pay to attract more into nursing and certainly to keep the ones already working while barely feeding their families. But there is a genuine plea for better, much better, working conditions and prospects within the NHS. They are radically understaffed for the patient volume and painfully mired in bureaucratic procedures that take time away from their chosen priority, patient care.
So much overwork, stress and dissatisfaction, is it any wonder nurses leave? UK trained nursing staff are in demand throughout the world. Australia offers higher pay, fewer hours, better working environment and more liberty time to enjoy life. Brexit put an end to many nurses coming to UK from the EU and wanting to stay. Medical staff in all areas are seriously stretched.
Despite all this, NHS nursing staff are striking to find a way to stay in the UK and offer the care they aspire to in their job.
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