Please help campaign for fairer wages for nurses

[Wet & Broke]

Hi YDer's I know some of you are nurses and I'm sure others either know nurses or have experience of the care we deliver, if you have the time it would help if you would lobby your MP to look at improving the pitance of a pay award we are due to recieve. A friend recently sent me this and I thought I'd put it on YD to ask for your support.
Thanks
Doug
The Government has announced a staged pay award for nurses next year.
Nurses will receive 1.5% in April followed by 1.0% in November.
Because it's staged, the award is actually only worth 1.9%.
With council tax bills up by an average of 3.5%, regulated rail fares up by 4.3% and higher interest rates increasing monthly mortgage repayments, an award of this level would actually mean a substantial real terms pay cut for nurses like me.
Please join the RCN's campaign for fairer wages for nurses by writing to your MP:
Error message - E-activist 2.0

[Darren27]

I agree that the nurses should as a minimum get at least the full inflation rate rise. A pay cut does no one any good.

Just as a matter of interest, how much pay does the average nurse take home?

[Wet & Broke]

Originally Posted by Darren27

I agree that the nurses should as a minimum get at least the full inflation rate rise. A pay cut does no one any good.

Just as a matter of interest, how much pay does the average nurse take home?

Hi Darren, here is an extract from an RCN document discussing nurses pay:
Nursing staff face the prospect of 1.5% pay award next year.

1.5% is what the Government wants nursing staff and other health professionals to receive.
But with the real rate of inflation currently running at 4.2%, an award of this level would actually mean a substantial real terms pay cut for nurses of 2.7%.
With the average wage of a registered nurse being £24,841, that equates to a £670.70 a year loss.

Most of us support families and are the main wage earners so this is important especially when you see the pay awards given to more powerful public sector employees (and I don't mean that they don't deserve it either)
My own Son is a police officer still in his probationary period (2yrs) and he gets far more than a newly qulaified nurses who will have spent 3 years living on a pitance while they are training.

[edward]

Nurses are a worthy cause in thier own right, and deserve at least inflationary rises. The recent pay changes are a joke.

Also, remember all the other poor bu**ers in the NHS as well - they have mostly got stitched up by 'agenda for change' - the shambolic 're-grading' exercise - and are suffering as well. They are not generally as unionised as the nurses/doctors, so don't have the collective advantages, but they all play a part in your NHS treatment, from physios, OT's, and ward orderlies to pharmacists and radiographers.

[Gavin Smith]

Nurses are never going to get a decent pay rise until they go on strike like the Australian nurses did in the 1980's.

Frankly the NHS depresses me.

[Wet & Broke]

Originally Posted by edward

Nurses are a worthy cause in thier own right, and deserve at least inflationary rises. The recent pay changes are a joke.

Also, remember all the other poor bu**ers in the NHS as well - they have mostly got stitched up by 'agenda for change' - the shambolic 're-grading' exercise - and are suffering as well. They are not generally as unionised as the nurses/doctors, so don't have the collective advantages, but they all play a part in your NHS treatment, from physios, OT's, and ward orderlies to pharmacists and radiographers.

Can't argue with that, the government crapped on us from a great hight with "agenda for change" and most people I know working in the NHS feel we have been sold out.

[Wet & Broke]

Unfortunately most of us would be reluctant to strike because patients would suffer before the government does. I would also be quite likely that any such action because of its effect upon patient care would quickly see nurses and any other health care workers involved being demonised by both the media and government.

[Jim Shaw]

Sorry but, at a salary of £24,841, nurses are not overpaid, but also not badly paid, especially when you factor in cheaper housing ect,

I love the way some people in the public services go on about there wages,
you knew what the salary, and the working conditions were like before you took on the job, don't bleat about it afterwards.

no offence ment at you on a personal level, but you hear this stuff all the time from the public sector, there is never a public sector worker getting paid enough, never has been, never will be.

[Gavin Smith]

Originally Posted by Wet & Broke

Unfortunately most of us would be reluctant to strike because patients would suffer before the government does.

...and unfortunately the Government knows it.

[Gavin Smith]

Originally Posted by Jim Shaw

Sorry but, at a salary of £24,841, nurses are not overpaid, but also not badly paid, especially when you factor in cheaper housing ect,

I love the way some people in the public services go on about there wages,
you knew what the salary, and the working conditions were like before you took on the job, don't bleat about it afterwards.

That will be the reason why demand has outstripped supply for nurses for years and the NHS relies upon overseas nurses to keep any sort of service going.