[Politics] The Sun - nurses ?

[St Leonards Seagull]

I'm an ex-nurse. My husband's an NHS nurse still. Neither of us believe this strike is justified or fair. Nursing has never been a highly paid job, it's hard work, and you have to do and see nasty stuff sometimes. You don't join the profession to earn loads of cash or for an easy life, but it has other, immense, rewards. I'm not politically minded, they're all tits, and God knows whose or what's fault it is that we find ourselves as a nation in the state we're in now (although I have my own suspicions). Most ordinary, working people are suffering to a greater or lesser degree at present, most people can do little to alleviate it. Those nurses who are choosing to strike are basically holding everyone else to ransom. If every nurse in the country gets a 17% pay rise, then the rest of us are royally f***ed, its just not affordable. Playing the "woe is me, I'm an NHS hero, don't you know" card is frankly a bit nauseating in my opinion.

How do you both feel about the shortage of nurses and how that is affecting patient care?
I didn’t vote to strike, but I can understand why some have, we need to attract more nurses and retain the ones we have.
I’ve never seen so many experienced nurses leave as I have in the past few years, a lot of their reasoning is that they just can’t take the stress caused by not being able to provide adequate care.
The newly qualified nurses I really feel for, having mentored quite a few over the years, they come out of university and pretty much shell shocked at what they’re confronted with. Just thrown in the deep end with very few experienced nurse’s available for support.
It’s a bit of a horror show, if nothing else it will hopefully provide a window for people to see whats happening.

 

[dazzer6666]

The biggest issue with the NHS is starting. Many nurses see they can go elsewhere and get the same pay without the horrific working conditions and trauma they might deal with.

If we actually taxed the wealthy enough we might be able to keep a functioning NHS.

Look at the Scandinavian countries that have higher taxes and better healthcare. They also tend to have universal basic income and better higher education programs.

The NHS needs reforming as well though - absolutely colossal sums of money being wasted on management, admin, crap IT, pisspoor processes etc etc etc. Genuinely don’t know how that happens though - it’s too big to tackle, and would be too politically sensitive.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Daughter is a B6 (with an MSc) and not in that range….but agree the 2007 comment sounds wrong. As you say there is also a massive regional issue that can also be incredibly localised - where my daughter lives/works, a standard B6 salary is an excellent wage - her flat rental for example is £350/month, but if she moved just 30 miles North it would be easily more than double that but the salary would be the same. She wouldn’t be able to survive if she had to work in London.

I can fully understand the nurses anger when you see stuff like this advertised

View attachment 154781

f*** me. Six figures a year for a word salad. That’s two nurses and change

 

[BadFish]

There seems to be two camps on this thread.

1. Support for the workers

2. "The Tories have f***ed us over for the last 12 years and the public workers should shut up and suffer like the rest of us"

I struggle with the fact that people are not more pissed off with what is happening over there. Or is it not actually that bad?

 

[St Leonards Seagull]

There seems to be two camps on this thread.

1. Support for the workers

2. "The Tories have f***ed us over for the last 12 years and the public workers should shut up and suffer like the rest of us"

I struggle with the fact that people are not more pissed off with what is happening over there. Or is it not actually that bad?

3, The Tories are doing a grand job, imagine how bad it’s going to be when the next lot get in and public workers should suck it up.

 

[BadFish]

The NHS needs reforming as well though - absolutely colossal sums of money being wasted on management, admin, crap IT, pisspoor processes etc etc etc. Genuinely don’t know how that happens though - it’s too big to tackle, and would be too politically sensitive.

This depends on how true the suggestions of deliberate sabotage in order to privatise it. (lets face it they have got form). That would explain how it has happened.

With the shit being drip fed it may be politically sensitive but generally if people could ignore the Murdochs of the world, they would support a properly functioning NHS.

So, of course it needs reform. You just need a choice of political party that will take the job on.

 

[BadFish]

3, The Tories are doing a grand job, imagine how bad it’s going to be when the next lot get in and public workers should suck it up.

I have missed those comments. Surely no-one still thinks this?

 

[Weststander]

Daughter is a B6 (with an MSc) and not in that range….but agree the 2007 comment sounds wrong. As you say there is also a massive regional issue that can also be incredibly localised - where my daughter lives/works, a standard B6 salary is an excellent wage - her flat rental for example is £350/month, but if she moved just 30 miles North it would be easily more than double that but the salary would be the same. She wouldn’t be able to survive if she had to work in London.

I can fully understand the nurses anger when you see stuff like this advertised

View attachment 154781

I’m guessing that your daughter’s youth (not too long in the career) is counting against her.

Without wishing lifetime’s away, the salary range I mentioned crept up on the nursing peer group we know. Part of it was a huge pay rise one 1st April (2019 or 2020?). We never did check why.

The day to day pressure varies too. My wife knows career drifters in NHS nursing roles where it’s a doddle, they know their job inside out, they’re very much caring, but in no one’s terms are they stressed.

Whereas, I think you’ve touched on this before, acute ward staff are burnt out. A daily sick leave role (Covid, again) adding to the pressure on those who unfailingly turn up for their shifts.

 

[St Leonards Seagull]

I’m guessing that your daughter’s youth (not too long in the career) is counting against her.

Without wishing lifetime’s away, the salary range I mentioned crept up on the nursing peer group we know. Part of it was a huge pay rise one 1st April (2019 or 2020?). We never did check why.

The day to day pressure varies too. My wife knows career drifters in NHS nursing roles where it’s a doddle, they know their job inside out, they’re very much caring, but in no one’s terms are they stressed.

Whereas, I think you’ve touched on this before, acute ward staff are burnt out. A daily sick leave role (Covid, again) adding to the pressure on those who unfailingly turn up for their shifts.

The pay rise in 2019 was to bring pay back in line after years of pay freezes.

 

[GT49er]

The NHS needs reforming as well though - absolutely colossal sums of money being wasted on management, admin, crap IT, pisspoor processes etc etc etc. Genuinely don’t know how that happens though - it’s too big to tackle, and would be too politically sensitive.

Absolutely this. I worked for ten years from the early noughties for an NHS PCT (Primary Care Trust) in an admin. capacity - in a large office (nowhere near a hospital or surgery). I worked in a section with ten or so others - all lovely people (including me, I like to think!) I did a good job - but TBH, if our whole little section has just ceased to exist overnight no-one would have noticed, patient care would in no way have been affected - and the same applied to probably three quarters of the staff that worked there!

When they scrapped PCTs in 2013 or 2014, a local charity won the contract to carry on running our role. It was clear from the start they didn't want to carry on the work, just wanted the bodies and the money that came (from the public purse!) for taking on the contract. I walked out after a few months (I was past retirement age anyway, but had planned on carry on for another year or two). My work - and the work that my colleagues did - all stopped and disappeared in months. Nobody noticed!

I rest my case ......................................

 

[A1X]

I agree that 17% is probably unaffordable but it was a starting negotiating figure and they have been offered 4% with the Government refusing to negotiate a penny more.

It genuinely amazes me how few people in this country seem to understand how negotiation works. No wonder there’s been a housing bubble given how I assume the people ridiculing the idea of 17% presumably also paid the full asking price for every house they’ve ever bought.

 

[Lenny Rider]

The people turning on those who are striking haven't actually looked into why they're striking.

I've heard a lot about the rail strikes and how driver's earn £x amount a year when it's not the drivers who are striking, it's the rest of staff.

The popular press in this country at times borders on being Orwellian, they only tell us want they want us to hear, just like in 1984

 

[Guinness Boy]

The NHS needs reforming as well though - absolutely colossal sums of money being wasted on management, admin, crap IT, pisspoor processes etc etc etc. Genuinely don’t know how that happens though - it’s too big to tackle, and would be too politically sensitive.

Mrs GB works for a charity that are suddenly wasting a fortune on diversity and inclusion programs for staff which has seen a reduction in front line services and cash flow.

I’d imagine the NHS is doing similar. Maybe some adjustments needed in management in this respect, but surely a qualified medic is a qualified medic, however they identify or wherever they come from.

I would have expected a Tory government to go after this with gusto, but already they seem to be far happier to demonise Unions in a desperate effort to save their own, sorry arses.

 

[dazzer6666]

I’m guessing that your daughter’s youth (not too long in the career) is counting against her.

Without wishing lifetime’s away, the salary range I mentioned crept up on the nursing peer group we know. Part of it was a huge pay rise one 1st April (2019 or 2020?). We never did check why.

The day to day pressure varies too. My wife knows career drifters in NHS nursing roles where it’s a doddle, they know their job inside out, they’re very much caring, but in no one’s terms are they stressed.

Whereas, I think you’ve touched on this before, acute ward staff are burnt out. A daily sick leave role (Covid, again) adding to the pressure on those who unfailingly turn up for their shifts.

Probably…..she’s been in about 5 years now but also she’s NHS Scotland which are separately governed (still had a strike ballot but wasn’t quite enough support to go through with the strike).

Exactly right about the day to day pressure varying from ward to ward from what I’ve heard from her. She is a little less affected by that now as she’s a palliative specialist (compared with, say, a full DME ward where she previously worked things are somewhat calmer) - but obviously a different kind of stress. Staff numbers across the board in the industry (and I see this acutely from the residential school I work with too) are insufficient, turnover is high, sickness levels are also high, morale can be low, the COL crisis is causing more to leave and it does seem we’re in ever decreasing circles at the moment. It’s quite distressing.

 

[dazzer6666]

f*** me. Six figures a year for a word salad. That’s two nurses and change

I’ve seen some bullshit jobs advertised in financial services over the years but this left me open-mouthed.

 

[LamieRobertson]

The NHS needs reforming as well though - absolutely colossal sums of money being wasted on management, admin, crap IT, pisspoor processes etc etc etc. Genuinely don’t know how that happens though - it’s too big to tackle, and would be too politically sensitive.

Aye….huge reform ….DT have an article today about such…an example below

Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) is recruiting a “director for lived experience” who must have experiences of “a life altering health condition” and “significant power imbalances” in their use of health services.

The tsar will “ensure brave spaces” for people to give feedback and be based at St George’s Hospital, in Stafford, on a salary of £110,000-115,000 per year – four times that of a newly qualified nurse or junior doctor.

They should also “seek out and heavily involve ‘seldom heard’, under-represented and/or disadvantaged groups” and be a “strategic bridge-builder”, a job advert says.

I think I’d prefer my money was spent on a nurse or doctor

 

[dazzer6666]

Aye….huge reform ….DT have an article today about such…an example below

Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) is recruiting a “director for lived experience” who must have experiences of “a life altering health condition” and “significant power imbalances” in their use of health services.

The tsar will “ensure brave spaces” for people to give feedback and be based at St George’s Hospital, in Stafford, on a salary of £110,000-115,000 per year – four times that of a newly qualified nurse or junior doctor.

They should also “seek out and heavily involve ‘seldom heard’, under-represented and/or disadvantaged groups” and be a “strategic bridge-builder”, a job advert says.

I think I’d prefer my money was spent on a nurse or doctor

Er, yes, I posted the actual ad in this thread earlier

 

[LamieRobertson]

Er, yes, I posted the actual ad in this thread earlier

 

[BadFish]

Aye….huge reform ….DT have an article today about such…an example below

Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) is recruiting a “director for lived experience” who must have experiences of “a life altering health condition” and “significant power imbalances” in their use of health services.

The tsar will “ensure brave spaces” for people to give feedback and be based at St George’s Hospital, in Stafford, on a salary of £110,000-115,000 per year – four times that of a newly qualified nurse or junior doctor.

They should also “seek out and heavily involve ‘seldom heard’, under-represented and/or disadvantaged groups” and be a “strategic bridge-builder”, a job advert says.

I think I’d prefer my money was spent on a nurse or doctor

Whilst I agree that this money would be better spent on doctors and nurses.

If there was a proven will to improve the NHS, maybe it would be better to say when. Then this role is important in terms of understanding where improvements can be made. The role could be described in better terms but surely what is being asked for is the investigation of people's experiences, to include those who are often not heard.

If this is coupled with a will to invest in the recommendations then it is a good idea. At present though I agree it is pissing more tax payers money to the wind.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Aye….huge reform ….DT have an article today about such…an example below

Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) is recruiting a “director for lived experience” who must have experiences of “a life altering health condition” and “significant power imbalances” in their use of health services.

The tsar will “ensure brave spaces” for people to give feedback and be based at St George’s Hospital, in Stafford, on a salary of £110,000-115,000 per year – four times that of a newly qualified nurse or junior doctor.

They should also “seek out and heavily involve ‘seldom heard’, under-represented and/or disadvantaged groups” and be a “strategic bridge-builder”, a job advert says.

I think I’d prefer my money was spent on a nurse or doctor

When it comes to healthcare I wouldn’t believe anything the DT spins. I have read some stuff of theirs regarding the U.K. MHRA and drug applications, it was factually wrong on about 10 counts. Whether willfully or because the journo is plain thick I don’t know, but wrong it was.