NHS campaigners demand more pay for ‘nurses who deserve more’ after pay offer refused

News / Fri 27th Sep 2024 at 11:48am

NHS campaigners in Essex are demanding more pay for nurses who “deserve more, as do their patients in their care” after the latest Government pay offer was refused reports the Local Democracy Reporter.

Essex nurses have refused a pay rise of 5.5 per cent with two-thirds of the 145,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing who voted online saying the rise was not fair. The pay award was announced by the Chancellor in late July as she accepted the recommendations of the NHS Pay Review Body, awarding the rise consolidated pay increase across all bands. This is expected to be paid next month and will be backdated to April 1, 2024.

As this is a pay award rather than a pay offer, the results of our consultation will not directly affect employers’ payment of it. However, it shows our members’ strength of feeling that something fundamental must change for nursing pay. Essex campaigners say the pay rise is not enough to keep staff in hospitals to care for patients and that staff feel ” burnout, low morale and daily stress trying to keep patients safe.”

The Save Southend NHS group fights for the rights of staff under the Mid and South Essex NHS Trust, as well as other Essex hospital workers. A spokesman said: “So the general consensus amongst staff is that a 5.5 per cent pay increase is not going to encourage staff to stay in the NHS or attract nurses back to a profession that already has severe staffing issues impacting on the care of their patients.

“The 14 years of paltry pay increases, which do not match nurses’ skills or inflation, whilst they continue to endure burnout, low morale, and daily stress while trying to keep patients safe, will not be rectified by a mere 5.5 percent. Nurses are degree-educated workers and the backbone of our NHS – they deserve more, as do their patients in their care.”
In a letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting MP, she said: “We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the determination of nursing staff to stand up for themselves, their patients and the NHS they believe in.
“Many will support the new government’s health and care agenda as set out in recent weeks and fully recognise the diagnosis of a failing NHS. Working closely with all other professionals, nursing staff are the lifeblood of the service. The government will find our continued support for the reforms key to their success.”

18 Comments for NHS campaigners demand more pay for ‘nurses who deserve more’ after pay offer refused:

adam

2024-09-27 12:22:36

Well the Dr's got 22% so why would they settle for 5%, never mind what the train drivers got. This is what happens when you have a clown show for government. It is going to be a long 5 years if they make it that long.

Tommy

2024-09-27 13:08:10

They are relying on nurses being so hard up that they can’t afford to strike and on importing nurses from overseas. The trouble is that the nurses already here, most of whom have degrees have seen what they train drivers get and want a share of it and also the UK just isn’t that attractive to overseas workers with its poverty wages, low job satisfaction and on the job abuse. Keir Starmer and his mates don’t appreciate that the average nurse has to pay for their food, clothes and accommodation from their wages and that they can’t depend on Freebies from rich benefactors. Nurses will always have more compassion and empathy than Keir and his cabal, but lets hope that they become a little more transactional like our political class, so that they can stand up for what they deserve.

gary roberts

2024-09-27 18:37:25

The government says strikes must be sorted because it would cost more not too. Nurses deserve much more and I would be on any nurse picket line to support them. Starmer will lose if he attempts to challenge them. If this is change then he should resign.

Stuart J

2024-09-27 19:43:50

Well what did this Government expect was going to happen? The nurses, along with all the other unions, spent enough time and energy campaigning and protesting about their inadequate pay rises they were offered by the previous administration. And their goal was to bring about a change of Government - that achieved. Now it’s pay back time!

David Forman

2024-09-28 09:07:39

Nurses and all other NHS workers have seen their pay eroded over the past 14 vears and had to endure the Covid crisis. You only get what you pay for and we see a demoralised workforce that can't wait for their retirement date. I've never seen it so bad in the NHS. It is time to start paying decent wages.

Guy Flegman

2024-09-28 09:50:02

It’s the whole country that have had their pay eroded. This is primarily down to over regulation of everything and too much taxation. If the government gives the public sector unfunded pay rises regardless of the fact that it is deserved, what do you think will happen next. They will have to put up taxes and this will result in people from the private sector( who are not getting their pay levelled up because the private sector cannot afford it) leaving to join the public sector. Problem is the public sector do not bring much money into the country so UK plc gets poorer which means the gov will have to increase taxes even more. Think of it this way if you have a household and 1 person goes out to work but pays the rest of the members to do jobs around the house then the only person really earning money is the one that leaves the house to work. Well our country works the same way. Without people selling goods and services to other countries our economy would collapse. The government should really have done something to motivate and increase the private sector first as this would have ultimately increased tax receipts which could then be used for public sector pay increases. If we do not start uniting more as a country instead of dividing ourselves into ever smaller opposing groups then things are going to get very bad indeed. Interesting fact, did you know that the average wage in the UK is about £35k and the average pay in the US is about £49k.

LM

2024-09-28 11:29:54

Good for them! Why should nurses get 5 times less than doctors!? It's absolutely ludacris considering all the stuff a nurse had to do. It's time for nurses to be paid fairly

Zoe

2024-09-28 15:34:56

Nurses have been under paid for years now, expected to work for good will. Which they have done for decades now, they are not even asking for a pay rise, they just want what they have been robbed of for all these years. The government say they are giving them pittance pay rises yet this all gets taken back in taxes and cost of living expenses. It’s time to start valuing those who risk their lives and sacrifice their own well being on a daily basis, if doctors can get 22% then nurses should not settle for a measly 5.5%. This 5.5% will more than likely be over a 4-5 year period just like the 2.5% was. It’s not surprising that recruitment for nursing is so low.

Tim

2024-09-28 17:19:39

I’d prefer to see a time served Nurse Practitioner over a newly arrived Doctor any day.

WINI

2024-09-28 18:32:46

I am Phlebotomist and we are working like robots. I take blood from 70 patients daily including children. Very responsible work not appreciated by the government. Why for 24,000 a year none of them would do this job. Start paying decently as the prices of everything are going up.

Cath

2024-09-28 19:18:56

I work on hospital wards in food and beverages and see every hour of every day a health care assistant doing nursing jobs and nurses having no choice but to undertake tasks that should be performed by doctors. Cleaners, cooks and maintenance workers are more involved with patients than is expected because the whole system has fallen apart. To give doctors 20whatever % and everyone else 5.5?!? Wheres the goodwill and compromise?? Wheres this spirit that all NHS are in it together? This is a divisive action, the atmosphere of the wards has changed already....it is a subject unspoken but trongly felt among ALL staff who have been snubbed. Again.

Kathryn knight

2024-09-29 07:17:27

Dr's got their payrise by sticking to their guns, it's time that nurses did the same. If the government can't afford it then they need to retake control over the assets that dear old Maggie sold off, keep the profits to fund our country.

Taffy

2024-09-29 08:07:37

A nurse is lowly paid, does every thing you can think of to a patient’s care, l mean everything from a wash to every care you can think of, (phlebotomy, physio, porter, caterer etc) anything which makes a patient comfortable in their care in order to promote and maintain NHS and NMC best practice. A nurse does not add there, a follow up of pt after discharged to make sure they have received their medication and handed them over to community care if needed. The nurse salary is never fair from the beginning and this is the time government should consider a nurse salary and reflect on the COVID situation, up to now the COVID situation brings a trauma in my daily routine as a nurse. Above all a nurse was comforted with a clap, this is so sad 😢. A better salary is required for a nurse.

Peris Ngira

2024-09-29 14:13:15

Training as Nurse at Masters level I was looking forward to good salary. Working 12hrs shifts , Days or Nights is demoralising everyday of our kives. Limited options for better working hours with good pay . Salary is never enough. Pay NHS nurses decently to avoid the use of expensive agency nurses. International Nurses are also getting burnt out and plans to eventually leave the NHS for better pay and good working conditions in other countries like USA & Australia. Am a nurse , with 4 children, working extra hours to be able to meet all their needs And pay all my bills being a single parents. No body cares about your situation. On top of poor pay, we have to maintain our registration every year. Please Labour Government , pay us the decent salary we deserve.

Anonymous

2024-09-29 21:47:56

As a health care assistant in the nhs I personally feel we are also under looked, we are expected to sometimes do a nurses job not forgetting that a health care assistant is basically a band 2 but expected to do a nurses job if and when they need that. Nurses are literally run off their feet 24 hours a day and so are we it's absolutely shocking the pressure on us. I don't blame people for not coming into the nhs as new qualified, I did not go for my degree because what is the point when I make less than 300 a month on my wage compared to the nurses. But a junior doctor gets a 22% rise when they literally come by a patient and say a few words n walk out the door it's absolutely shocking and most nurses could walk the floor with a doctor these days and their job with eyes shut. These young junior doctors have no clue and it really angers me that they are paid to say a few word and walk away. Give them a 2.5% rise an nurses the 22% rise!

Ash

2024-09-30 13:39:52

We need to remove Nursing professionals from the AfC payscale and evaluate our jobs fairly. I understand the government reluctance when AfC covers so many people, not just nursing - they cannot afford it. I love everyone I work with, but a nurses work, skill and care is not equality to the same band of admin role etc. It needs it's own bespoke payscale

Olayinka

2024-09-30 14:29:15

It is sad. The inequality in pay for nurses is too much. Why can't the nurses at least get 12% while doctors 14% . The nurses often have to teach some of the doctors medication dosages, because the newly qualifies doctors, especially rely on the nurses to tell them how to prescribe some medications. These are the ones that are going to get higher pay rise than the nurses. Many nurses have started going into other professions that pay better. The labour govt should look into this. Most nurses are not happy with this disparities in pay scale. It is not fair.

Dawn Josephine Hilton

2024-10-01 09:12:29

I am an Emergency Nurse Practitioner working in A and E, I work 13 hour shifts, pay for my own uniforms as we can't get them, my own footwear, my own equipment such as a decent stethoscope which you need in my job which can cost 70 quid or above, I pay 120 a year for my registration and I pay for car parking were I work, my own meals and I'm a single mother. Pension can take over 400 pounds a month out your salary and I have not one but two nursing degrees which took ten years in total to get. I do everything a junior doctor does, including examination, investigation, diagnoses , treatment and not to mention assess and triage, I am at present working a fifty to sixty hours a week to survive. My daughter is left every weekend as I have to work every weekend, bank holidays and Christmas period. To say it's hard is an underestimating. Most nurses are on medication for either depression , stress , joint problems or high blood pressure. We love our jobs, it is a total privilege to care for the British population, but we are tired, stressed and a lot of us can't afford to eat properly, there have been days I've eaten my daughters left overs. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't get the chance to socialise. We are cheap version of doctors and psychiatrists. Please hear us and pay us fair or put someone in power who can. I think because we are mostly a female work force and our job is too care we are taken for granted. No more Mr priminister, it's time to pay nurses what they are worth. It's a mockery when practitioners who are nurses actually DO a doctors role and paid far far less. Maybe I should have trained to be a train driver instead of caring for our amazing working class population !