[Politics] The Sun - nurses ?

[zefarelly]

The Sun . . . The enemy of the people.

like the tories.

 

[AlbionBro]

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.

I don't follow this sort of thing closely, but is that 17% rise a typo, or is that for real?

 

[CHAPPERS]

Inflation plus 5%

 

[CHAPPERS]

It’s not pay claims that are driving up prices in Britain. It’s profits

Whatever the chancellor and the Bank may suggest, wage settlements are still running behind the rate of inflation

www.theguardian.com

‘The chancellor said he couldn’t revisit pay review decisions for public sector workers without risking a knock-on effect from higher wages to higher prices. In Threadneedle Street, Bailey justified an increase in the base rate to 3.5% with a swipe at workers who bid up their wages.

The governor and a majority of his colleagues on the Bank’s monetary policy committee believe the Aldi and East Midlands airport deals are the tip of a large iceberg. The implication is that wage restraint would take the steam out of inflation and allow the Bank to freeze interest rates, or even lower them, next year.

A question that bedevils the debate about inflation is this: how do official figures showing wage rises averaging 6% – well below the 10.7% consumer prices index – tally with Bailey’s narrative? How does pay settlement data, which tracks the big deals offered this year by major employers across the public and private sectors, reveal a trigger for runaway prices when it shows those deals average just 4%?

The answer may be found elsewhere. It may be that wily corporations have spotted a chance to jack up prices by more than their own costs have increased, knowing consumers have come to expect a supersonic rise in shopping bills.’

 

[zefarelly]

Inflation plus 5%

Except its not

many public ( and private ) sector jobs have had real world pay cuts in the last 15-20 years.

Ther's a BofE inflation calculator, which has been recently recallibrated ( down) to 2.5% a year . . . . I'm 14% down on my 2008 salary currently ( But I had a car as well) . 39% down on my 2003 salary and currently doing the same job I was back then. . .

 

[kojak]

I know this is a very serious thread but
Upon opening I expected to see Linda Lusardi in a nurse's outfit

 

[abc]

Here's the interesting thing. Her pay is really good. Just from being a nurse for 20 years and moving up a band (I think they call it). Far, far better than the figures mentioned in the sympathetic media. The NHS rewards length of service/skill set in effect and so it should.

The pension scheme is also astonishingly good. Post tax relief as you contribute, she has a deduction of 7.84% from pay. The gross employers and employees contributions total 30.48%. Nurses retire on a guaranteed final salary, or later entrants career average pension at age 60, or later entrants at 65.

We're leaning on the side of the younger nurses on very modest pay, in London especially.

All true but you wont be popular on here saying it.

Like many on here, I have a number of friends and family working in the nhs. None want to strike and at the moment none are, but their (very real) anger appears to be less about pay than the media are making ou,t and far more about their working conditions and the impact the overall state of the nhs is having on them personally and the ability to do the job they signed up for - caring for patients. A common theme seems to be a belief that no level of extra spending on the nhs will change things for the better unless the existing level of wastage is reduced, especially on tiers of management.

 

[beorhthelm]

A question that bedevils the debate about inflation is this: how do official figures showing wage rises averaging 6% – well below the 10.7% consumer prices index – tally with Bailey’s narrative? How does pay settlement data, which tracks the big deals offered this year by major employers across the public and private sectors, reveal a trigger for runaway prices when it shows those deals average just 4%?

The answer may be found elsewhere. It may be that wily corporations have spotted a chance to jack up prices by more than their own costs have increased, knowing consumers have come to expect a supersonic rise in shopping bills.’

more wages means more money in the economy, mean prices can rise as there is more supply. thats the basic theory anyway. yes, companies can jack up prices because people have the wages to cover. also wages are often one of the largest cost so will directly increase prices. to avoid run away inflation we need to have the rather nastily name demand destruction, lowering peoples demand for goods and services. there is a incredibly fine line between that and recession, they always get it wrong and we'll dip into negative growth. the alternative is inflationay cycle that most wont keep up with and value of savings are destroyed. short term pain and fix or long term bleed out without any fix.

all that said the primary inflation is from oil and energy and lack of production from China. they (all western governments) are using the only tools they have (interest rate increases, suppress public sector pay rises) for something that's out of their control. however if they did nothing they'd be negligent. rocks and hard places. we'll have a recession next year across europe, hopefully short, with inflation dropping sharply as oil, energy work through.

 

[abc]

At the end of the day, for nurses to strike there has to be something seriously wrong. I have no idea what is 'fair pay' for nurses but I know if someone I loved life depended on the care of a nurse then a £million/hour would not be enough. But what I do know is that all those working in the nhs should have the tools to do the job and they clearly don't. That is not fair for them and it is not good for the rest of us. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to work in the nhs at the moment, or through Covid, but all nhs staff have my respect and if they need to strike to make their voice heard then so be it.
But will anyone listen? If all politicians and nhs leaders asked the nurses how to run the nhs then we might end up with a plan, but of course they wont.

 

[Weststander]

The NHS is a big organisation and not all nurses have the same bad working conditions so can see why some don't want to get involved. But your last point that is key to the whole debate , those that are in and have been for 20 years have a reasonable salary (not great but reasonable) the new ones coming in don't nor do they have the benefit of free training and as a consequence they have nominal large debts against them ( nominal because if they continue to earn little money they don't pay the debt).

The strike is also about where the NHS is going to be in 5 to 10 years and its clear the Tories want to offload those bits that can make a profit, leaving the NHS in an even worse state e.g. dealing with the elderly or leaving it to pick up the tab for expensive treatments like cancer. Those nurses who say the strike is not for them need to consider that the strike is more than their individual pay or conditions it's about what's going to happen in the longer term.

Without the the newbies the NHS is f***ed and currently the churn and vacancies means the issue is getting worse.

I am not a nurse or in the NHS but over the last 4 years have spent a lot of time in hospitals because of my wife's ill health so have seen close up A&E, Ongology wards, Covid wards , ICU. Most of the nurses have been brilliant - not all . many worked a lot more hours than they should , often doing 14 hours on a 12 hour shift, often working more shifts than they wanted. yes they see it as a vocation but that does not give the government the right to abuse the nurses(and doctors) working conditions.

Finally , the strike occurred because the government won't sit down and talk to the RCN , yes talk nothing about agreeing a deal just be willing to talk.

It’s not pay claims that are driving up prices in Britain. It’s profits

Whatever the chancellor and the Bank may suggest, wage settlements are still running behind the rate of inflation

www.theguardian.com

‘The chancellor said he couldn’t revisit pay review decisions for public sector workers without risking a knock-on effect from higher wages to higher prices. In Threadneedle Street, Bailey justified an increase in the base rate to 3.5% with a swipe at workers who bid up their wages.

The governor and a majority of his colleagues on the Bank’s monetary policy committee believe the Aldi and East Midlands airport deals are the tip of a large iceberg. The implication is that wage restraint would take the steam out of inflation and allow the Bank to freeze interest rates, or even lower them, next year.

A question that bedevils the debate about inflation is this: how do official figures showing wage rises averaging 6% – well below the 10.7% consumer prices index – tally with Bailey’s narrative? How does pay settlement data, which tracks the big deals offered this year by major employers across the public and private sectors, reveal a trigger for runaway prices when it shows those deals average just 4%?

The answer may be found elsewhere. It may be that wily corporations have spotted a chance to jack up prices by more than their own costs have increased, knowing consumers have come to expect a supersonic rise in shopping bills.’

The BoE believe that cost-push caused this initial wave of inflation.

They don’t want to see it exacerbated by a secondary wave of inflation from high wage settlements, with businesses and quasi public sector entities such as transport providers then increasing prices substantially to pay for it.

Therefore to nip inflation in the bud at the first opportunity.

[I didn’t realise all this, until a recently retired MPC member helpfully explained the rationale in a TV interview].

 

[vegster]

Regarding transport providers, isn't it normal by now to have been advised of next years annual rail far e increase ? It is usually Septembers inflation figure +2% I believe ? Might not that somewhat undermine the governments affordability position on the current rail strikes if fares rise by 12% ?

 

[Wardy's twin]

Very old view of education. The vast majority of secondary schools are now academies so they are responsible for finance and the local authorities are not. This applies to over a third of LA schools too.

You are correct that schools can’t make a profit but they can generate lots of extra income to help run the organisation. They have to think in the same way as private businesses about generating revenue. Schools get funding per pupil but there are lots and lots of other things they can do to generate income.

These include ensuring all entitled apply for Free schools meals because this gets them extra money, running wraparound care, hiring out facilities, offering services to other schools E.g. if you have excellent finance manager they can be paid to help others, same for school improvement support. As you say it is also about how you spend what money you have properly which is also the case for business such as best procurement, buying the correct services, investing in capital etc. just because they are not making a profit to extract from the organisation they still need to run as businesses. This is why lots of multi academy trusts recruit people from the private sector who have never taught. I expect we are getting to a time when many MAT ceos wont have taught and then people will moan they should have done as they don’t have loved experience.

There in lies the problem - mucking about with financing has created the situation and devolved responsibility. It might be an old view but it worked. Schools should be about education not about running a business though ironically I do see the need to educate kids on money matters.

The BoE believe that cost-push caused this initial wave of inflation.

They don’t want to see it exacerbated by a secondary wave of inflation from high wage settlements, with businesses and quasi public sector entities such as transport providers then increasing prices substantially to pay for it.

Therefore to nip inflation in the bud at the first opportunity.

[I didn’t realise all this, until a recently retired MPC member helpfully explained the rationale in a TV interview].

But it was ok for MPs to have their pay rises ? It's ok to give the bankers back their bonuses ? Its ok to fritter away money on crap PPE and let your mates get rich in the process? I understand the issue around inflation and how wages can take us into a upward spiral of rate increases but ironically driving wealth (for the man in the street) down but we are talking about people's health , the most important thing going. So whilst this RCN action is about wages its also about the NHS and working conditions there in. As has been said previously for the RCN to take strike action something must be seriously wrong.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

If all politicians and nhs leaders asked the nurses how to run the nhs then we might end up with a plan, but of course they wont.

You do not need to ask anyone how to run the NHS. I have said this before, there are many decent properly run public health care models around Europe and the world; just pick the one you like off the shelf and implement it. It really is this simple; there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

 

[Justice]

Some harsh comments on this thread I spent a lot of time on a high dependency ward last year, every day my two nurses day/night shift were excellent. one night I thought I was on the way out my body was weak and I picked up an infection. Despite working her shift my night nurse stayed on in the morning making sure I was ok, I have no idea if she was being paid for the extra but that’s not really the point they do an incredible job and definitely not for the money.

 

[timbha]

You do not need to ask anyone how to run the NHS. I have said this before, there are many decent properly run public health care models around Europe and the world; just pick the one you like off the shelf and implement it. It really is this simple; there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

Would that simplistic option of choosing an off the shelf solution also apply to our tax system, welfare state, political system, unions, etc, etc that amongst many other things are intrinsically linked to our NHS. Perhaps there are off the shelf solutions for these too. It really isn’t that simple despite what it might say in the Guardian.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Would that simplistic option of choosing an off the shelf solution also apply to our tax system, welfare state, political system, unions, etc, etc that amongst many other things are intrinsically linked to our NHS. Perhaps there are off the shelf solutions for these too. It really isn’t that simple despite what it might say in the Guardian.

Yup, I reckon I can find off-the-shelf solutions from other countries to all these issues, but let’s stick to health care for now. but just imagine the U.K. with a Swiss style railway, Norwegian education, German healthcare, a French football team and Dutch women?

PS this isn’t something I read in The Guardian, it’s something I have arrived at from having a knowledge of other countries. Further, it was thinking inspired during the pandemic and the UK’s repeated failed attempts, and 38bn wasted, trying to build a Covid app. Why not just buy one of the apps which already existed?

 

[dazzer6666]

You do not need to ask anyone how to run the NHS. I have said this before, there are many decent properly run public health care models around Europe and the world; just pick the one you like off the shelf and implement it. It really is this simple; there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

It really, really isn’t. The costs, timescale and project complexity (and politics, vested interests etc) of changing the model would be on a scale poss not seen in any organisation, ever. Would take years to plan, let alone implement.

Not sure what the answer is though - we’re currently stuck with an NHS that is simply too big to change and is a bottomless pit into which no amount of money thrown into it will ever be ‘enough’.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

It really, really isn’t. The costs, timescale and project complexity (and politics, vested interests etc) of changing the model would be on a scale poss not seen in any organisation, ever. Would take years to plan, let alone implement.

Not sure what the answer is though - we’re currently stuck with an NHS that is simply too big to change and is a bottomless pit into which no amount of money thrown into it will ever be ‘enough’.

There has to be an answer though. The current situation can’t carry on.

 

[dazzer6666]

There has to be an answer though. The current situation can’t carry on.

There does, but the one thing it isn’t is simple.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

There does, but the one thing it isn’t is simple.

My point is more that little time and money needs to be spent on developing a healthcare model, the wheel doesn’t need reinventing.