Nurses Pay Award

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francovendee
Posts: 3148
Joined: 5 May 2009, 6:32am

Nurses Pay Award

Post by francovendee »

Will the 1% pay award help attract the 50000 nurses the NHS is trying to recruit?

I dislike the present Government so I may be biased but feel the amount doesn't reflect the effort they have put in during the last year.

I can't imagine the terror I'd feel going to work and risking getting this disease day after day.
kwackers
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Joined: 4 Jun 2008, 9:29pm
Location: Warrington

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by kwackers »

I'm going to swim against what appears to be a fairly strong tide here...

I think that now is the wrong time to award any pay rises. We simply don't know how much damage has been done to the economy, how many jobs will be lost or how much cash is genuinely going to be available.

The government has IMO made the covid situation vastly worse than it needed to be and wasted far more cash than we'd have needed to give public sector workers a decent payrise but that's done and the cash has gone.

Rather than worry about whether we'll attract the extra nurses I'd be more concerned about whether we can afford them at all. At the end of the day nurses are paid out of the public purse which is in turn funded by private enterprise and nobody can say with any confidence at the moment just how well that's survived.

I personally would have said "no pay rises until the dust has settled".
I think that's a simple message that people would have understood instead of the fannying about I hear/see on the news.
Bonefishblues
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Location: Near Bicester Oxon

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by Bonefishblues »

OTOH inflating wages in perpetuity off the back of something so unprecedented needs to be balanced. In the private sector an exceptional year would usually result in a one-off bonus.

What about the case of food and other shop assistants, who have been on much lower wages and who have continued to serve customers through the pandemic, also at significant personal risk?

TBH in some respects I hope that we get the NHS meltdown that's long been coming in sufficient time for this pandemic still to be in the public's mind. Then the politicians may actually start to address its issues (or butt out, or whatever). And whilst they were having this Damascene moment, they could address the issues of the Care Sector, which are, arguably even worse - and whose employees are also paid significantly more poorly than nurses.

I see I'm echoing K's thoughts in some respect. Will type more quickly in future.
Oldjohnw
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Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by Oldjohnw »

All nurses are paid out of the public purse, but not all directly. Too many are paid via agencies.

All prison staff are paid out of the public purse, but too many via Serco and G4S. So what is paid and what reaches nurses or prison staff are not necessarily the same.
John
Bonefishblues
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Location: Near Bicester Oxon

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by Bonefishblues »

Oldjohnw wrote:All nurses are paid out of the public purse, but not all directly. Too many are paid via agencies.

All prison staff are paid out of the public purse, but too many via Serco and G4S. So what is paid and what reaches nurses or prison staff are not necessarily the same.

Agree - Agency margins are very high - IIRC at least +50% over a standard employee, more for specialist nurses like mental health professionals.
kwackers
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Location: Warrington

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by kwackers »

Bonefishblues wrote:
Oldjohnw wrote:All nurses are paid out of the public purse, but not all directly. Too many are paid via agencies.

All prison staff are paid out of the public purse, but too many via Serco and G4S. So what is paid and what reaches nurses or prison staff are not necessarily the same.

Agree - Agency margins are very high - IIRC at least +50% over a standard employee, more for specialist nurses like mental health professionals.

I assume agency nurses don't figure in the pay rises though.

It is a bizarre situation, agencies rely on a lack of employees, they attract their employees from the pool by offering higher wages which in turn creates a lack of employees and thus allows them to dictate costs...

Would higher wages fix that though? Surely the agencies could simply up their wages and costs to cover.

Seems to me to be a cycle that needs breaking.
Bonefishblues
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Location: Near Bicester Oxon

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by Bonefishblues »

kwackers wrote:
Bonefishblues wrote:
Oldjohnw wrote:All nurses are paid out of the public purse, but not all directly. Too many are paid via agencies.

All prison staff are paid out of the public purse, but too many via Serco and G4S. So what is paid and what reaches nurses or prison staff are not necessarily the same.

Agree - Agency margins are very high - IIRC at least +50% over a standard employee, more for specialist nurses like mental health professionals.

I assume agency nurses don't figure in the pay rises though.

It is a bizarre situation, agencies rely on a lack of employees, they attract their employees from the pool by offering higher wages which in turn creates a lack of employees and thus allows them to dictate costs...

Would higher wages fix that though? Surely the agencies could simply up their wages and costs to cover.

Seems to me to be a cycle that needs breaking.

Hell yes they do, indirectly - differentials, don't you know!

What's most valued by Agency Nurses is the greater flexibility of hours IME, along with the higher base pay (but the overall package isn't so very significantly higher value than the NHS, if at all, once benefits etc are taken into account)
Syd
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Joined: 23 Sep 2018, 2:27pm

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by Syd »

Mrs Syd and I both work for the NHS.

We both believe that, unlike many others, we are privileged to be in full employment during the pandemic with no threat of losing our jobs. Now is not the time for public sector pay rises of any magnitude.

Our health board makes very little use of agency staff; it operates its own staff bank system; and applications for vacancies across the patch are attracting higher than usual numbers of applicants.

As for one union asking for 12.5%. Really?!! Estimates vary, but based on figures in a 2017 report https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9241, to fund an NHS pay increase in line with inflation costs around £1.6b. This gives a figure in the region of £1b per %.
philvantwo
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Joined: 8 Dec 2012, 6:08pm

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by philvantwo »

My ex Mrs was a ward manager of a stroke unit, £52k salary, 45 days holiday + 8 days Bank Holidays per year. She was planning on retiring when she was 60, £80k lump sum and £35k a year pension! Just think of all those who've got no work and no income. Its a pity non of these MP's are like Dave Nellist, used to give half of his salary away to charity's in Coventry.
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simonineaston
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Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by simonineaston »

Too many are paid via agencies.
There was a bit of crisis some years ago when it was revealed that a substantial number of medical staff were choosing to work via an agency and getting a colossal boost in salary compared with what they would have earned, if they went through the normal avenues...
I'm not saying that running the NHS is easy, obs - its the biggest employer anywhere in Europe, and so its bill for wages is monsterous, but I do think, like a lot of folk, that to offer 1% in the light of all that 8pm-on-a-Thursday clapping business is gob-smackingly inept. What we do not need is a series of strikes, just when we come out of the worst of the covid pandemic and are trying to mop up all the postponed business...
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
Mike Sales
Posts: 7883
Joined: 7 Mar 2009, 3:31pm

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by Mike Sales »

How have the ward cleaners whose work has been outsourced fared?
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Boring_Username
Posts: 204
Joined: 2 Mar 2017, 2:38pm

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by Boring_Username »

It's a 1% increase in pay bands, not a 1% increase in pay.
Many nurses will see a larger increase as they progress through pay bands as a result of years of service, even if they remain in the same grade of position (i.e. pay increases for the same job).
Some other nurses are I believe covered by pre-existing more generous deals.
Added to which, as noted above, many nurses (over half at my local hospital) work through agencies, not directly for the NHS - so they may have different arrangements.

So it would be helpful to understand the resulting average increase in pay, rather than the headline impact on pay bands. That may well still be too modest, but I don't think we are getting the full picture at the moment.
francovendee
Posts: 3148
Joined: 5 May 2009, 6:32am

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by francovendee »

My best guess is that whether the 1% wil attract more nurses won't be known until the level of job loses from this pandemic and Br***t becomes clear. If they are high then there will be an attraction to take any secure employment. In 'normal' times I think it wouldn't be enough to attract new staff. The Government has in the past actively recruited trained staff from poorer countries. maybe the required nurses will come from overseas.
Bonefishblues
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Joined: 7 Jul 2014, 9:45pm
Location: Near Bicester Oxon

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by Bonefishblues »

Syd wrote:Mrs Syd and I both work for the NHS.

We both believe that, unlike many others, we are privileged to be in full employment during the pandemic with no threat of losing our jobs. Now is not the time for public sector pay rises of any magnitude.

Our health board makes very little use of agency staff; it operates its own staff bank system; and applications for vacancies across the patch are attracting higher than usual numbers of applicants.

As for one union asking for 12.5%. Really?!! Estimates vary, but based on figures in a 2017 report https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/9241, to fund an NHS pay increase in line with inflation costs around £1.6b. This gives a figure in the region of £1b per %.

Wise words. I too have been lucky in lockdown, unlike many.
Ben@Forest
Posts: 3647
Joined: 28 Jan 2013, 5:58pm

Re: Nurses Pay Award

Post by Ben@Forest »

francovendee wrote:Will the 1% pay award help attract the 50000 nurses the NHS is trying to recruit?

I dislike the present Government so I may be biased but feel the amount doesn't reflect the effort they have put in during the last year.

I can't imagine the terror I'd feel going to work and risking getting this disease day after day.


Fortunately not everyone thinks like you; Covid-19: Record number of students apply for nursing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56111379

I work both in the public sector and am self-employed. At the time of the first lock down last year my employer asked for staff to volunteer for Covid-related duties, not in any way related to their actual usual job. I did so without hesitation and I am sure I was one of many, and this happened nationally too. I was not asked to move onto such duties and I don't know how many people have been 'Covid volunteers' but the willingness was there.

I have to declare the usual NHS interest. My wife is a nurse, and frankly though work has been tough (no leave March - Sep 2020) there has been no 'terror' going to work day after day. Perhaps as you don't live here day to day you're more influenced by the hyperbole of the media and chat forums..... :wink:
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