Nurses Next To Strike?

[FatticusInch]

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-63150632.amp

In the current climate I reckon it’s a strong possibility.

/The Royal College of Nursing is balloting all of its UK members for strike action for the first time in its 106-year history.
The union is recommending its 300,000 members walk out over pay, with the result of the ballot due next month.
If strikes go ahead, the RCN says they would affect non-urgent but not emergency care.
The government has urged nurses to "carefully consider" the impact on patients./

……just after it removed the cap on bankers bonuses and attempted to increase the wealth of the top 1% in the country?
As a great character once said:
The impudence, the audacity, the unmitigated gall.

[emmie]

yes they do ^^

[naomi24]

Indeed. Train for free and then buzz off to an agency and get employed by the NHS on a much higher salary.

[Spicerack]

Thank you for your service, MrF.
Did they actually give you a gun and ammo an all that?

[Spicerack]

Can't blame the nurses really. But if the agency staff are replacing the NHS staff who left to join an agency. Must be legal, I suppose.
Didn't hear about it in the old days. (Where I'm sorry if you don't like it, but nearly everything was better)

[naomi24]

I know a very well qualified senior nurse who's been doing it for years. It's nothing new.

[murraymints]

^^ yup I know a senior nurse who only has to do 2 days per week with an agency and gets paid a good deal more than she would be working her prescribed full time NHS hours.. ridiculous..there really should be some kind of control...it IS public money after all

[Deskdiary]

I've mentioned this in the past - my first wife was an ITU Sister (could still be for all I know), and she regularly used to work agency shifts.

She'd finish one day as an NHS nurse, and work the next as an agency nurse, more often than not on the same unit.

I can remember her working on Xmas night one year and she was paid about £300......this was in the late 90s!

I can't say I blame them.

The fact is, the money is there to be earnt, so I'd suggest the foodbank stories are very much the exception that proves the rule, and they're trotted out because they're so unusual and it's grist to the mill for the mouth-frothers.

[pimplyteen]

It looks like that some know of senior nurses that have been getting good money in one way or another. But you wouldn't have done anything like that to increase your income to the maximum?

[Paigntonian]

Average nursing salary £39,000.

[Zacs-Master]

'the average wage of a UK Nurse is somewhere around the £33,000 to £35,000 a year mark.'

https://www.nurses.co.uk/careers-hub/nursing-pay-guide/#average-wage-for-a-UK-Nurse-in-2022

[bednobs]

nurses dont train for free anymore do they? I thought the bursaries were removed AND they have to pay tuition fees at uni now?
Unless they do an appreticeship

[bednobs]

"I know a senior nurse who only has to do 2 days per week with an agency and gets paid a good deal more than she would be working her prescribed full time NHS hours.. ridiculous..there really should be some kind of control...it IS public money after all"

then the answer is probably to pay full time NHS nurses more, no?

[Zacs-Master]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nursing-students-to-receive-5-000-payment-a-year

[pimplyteen]

Some jobs pay better than other jobs, don't they? some jobs pay a lot, lot better also. But there is a reason in most cases. I think it's called studying / qualifying, or in simple terms working that little bit harder to achieve. Unless you reward that then you are on a road to nowhere.

[bednobs]

oh, they u turned on that then Zacs! However, i presume they still have to pay £6-9k per term Uni fees?

[Ryzen]

Why cant the NHS run its own agency, to top up staff when and where needed, instead of paying high rates to private companies.

[bednobs]

they do

[davebro]

i presume they still have to pay £6-9k per term Uni fees?//

Except in Scotland where the English taxpayers will pay your fees!

[mouseymick]

My wife is a retired nurse, spending her last six years fighting staff cuts whilst watching money being wasted by hospitals buying items independently at inflated prices. The NHS should have a central purchasing centre - it would save £££millions - money which could go where it is needed … staff wages.

[Spicerack]

^Lol, I nearly fell out of bed.
Great crack, anyway, Mousey.