NHS 1% pay rise

[Smeagol]

Is the proposed 1% pay rise for the NHS:
1) Fair
2) Deserved
3) Derisory
4) Other

For starters I will state my position and say that they should have accepted it gracefully (and gratefully) as no other public sector employees seem to be getting anything. Whilst many NHS employees will have been working very hard under taxing and possibly dangerous conditions for the last year, they all knew the pay scales and the potential for working through an epidemic when they chose their profession. To now threaten strike action is a tad disingenuous.

[ian16th]

Is the proposed 1% pay rise for the NHS:
1) Fair
2) Deserved
3) Derisory
4) Other

For starters I will state my position and say that they should have accepted it gracefully (and gratefully) as no other public sector employees seem to be getting anything. Whilst many NHS employees will have been working very hard under taxing and possibly dangerous conditions for the last year, they all knew the pay scales and the potential for working through an epidemic when they chose their profession. To now threaten strike action is a tad disingenuous.

I wish that my fully paid for UK State Pension had been increased by ANY% at any time in the last 19 years!

[Wodrick]

I tend to agree that they should have accepted it gracefully (and gratefully) as no other public sector employees seem to be getting anything.
However the government's long-term funding plan for the NHS assumed a pay increase in 2021-22 of 2.1%.
I feel that should be honoured

[4mastacker]

It's another stick for the usual suspects to beat the government with. It doesn't seem very much but they are the only part of the public sector to be getting an increase and I believe there are some elements of the NHS that are getting more than 1%.

Conveniently forgotten is that incremental increases are still going ahead plus the £250 boost for lower paid staff. And the last 3 years of above inflation pay increases ranging from 6.5% for the top earners to 12% for new entrants.

Whilst the front line doctors and nurses had undoubtedly worked their arses off in the past year and deserve every penny they get, I'd bet that there is a fairly large number of managers/admin/support staff who haven't gone beyond their normal 9 to 5 hours and are riding on the back of those who have truly been on the front line. A former neighbour who is an NHS manager has been working from home for the whole of the pandemic - some risk!!

As far as I am aware (and open to correction), unlike the private sector, public sector workers have not lost their jobs during the lockdowns. My local council even had their gardeners pulling weeds up/pruning rose bushes in the local parks during lockdown. They're essential workers?? Really??

[Pontius Navigator]

Well summed up 4ma. Mrs PN, as a retired nurse, is spitting feathers though I think for nurses* not the doctors or managers.

1% of £100k, is quite nice thank you.I'll

The other thing is the detail. 1% may be 1% of the entire NHS pay bill, the devil is in the detail and may well be graduated.

*she also cringes when 'nurse' is applied to anyone in a uniform. There are Sisters, Staff Nurses, Auxiliaries and Assistants. The latter are not as she would term 'nurses' with Auxiliaries more akin to SEN, I believe. In her book only SRN or RGN are nurses.

[Boac]

I do think we need to separate the emotive element of the way the NHS staff have performed (magnificently) from the subject of a pay-rise. The key factor is what contractual arrangements have been made (see Wodrick #3) and whether other such 'contractural' arrangements are to be honoured for other workers. If ALL these are suspended (including ministerial, advisors and MP's pay and allowances etc) then a 1% offer is fair.

[Pontius Navigator]

The only one not mentioned is the 2.5% uplift on state pensions. This has been on the cards for scrapping but is also a sacred cow. This might have been the one moment to kill it or gives nurses 2.5%.

One might remember the 2.5% was instituted after an annual uplift measured in pence.

I acknowledge that Ian and other expatriots in the newer colonies have not had any increases at all.

[probes]

On the other hand - if they had said: we are exhausted (individually, I mean, like not being able to work any more due to individual health issues, not like a strike or protest) - what then? Surely just clapping regularly won't help much?

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

What annoys me about all this cr@p is that the unions are trying to make out that there is a special case for people who have been doing what NHS workers have been doing for decades. That is working your socks off for cr@p pay and tolerating chronic under staffing and being under resourced, and under appreciated. In the end most sensible people do what I did; I left before I burnt out and joined the PMRAFNS. When I left the RAF and returned to nursing I worked in the private sector and then full time agency nursing. There was no way that I was going to to work full time for the NHS ever again.

The NHS needs to be restructured rather than giving paltry pay rises otherwise nurses and doctors will continue to leave when they have had enough.

I certainly don't believe that NHS staff deserve any special treatment just because of the pandemic. If I was in their shoes I would be happy to be given a pay rise at all given the current situation.

Rant over.

[Pontius Navigator]

%..

[Boac]

It is very unclear what exactly the NHS pay rise is to be this year. Usual media 'confusion'. It the PRB '1%' on top of the contracted 2.1% or instead of?

[larsssnowpharter]

I have a number of friends and relatives who work for the NHS.

Three are fully qualified nurses with a minimum of ten years experience. Each earns 'about 45K'.

I'm told that a fully qualified nurse starts on 'about 25 K'.

This all seems pretty reasonable to me. Not the highest paid profession, agreed but not unreasonable.

What they all talk about though is there conditions. By this they mean like of staffing, rest periods and, the one that gets their collective goats: paying to park. Retention is a connected issue. There seems to be a collective sense that, while patients appreciate them, their employer does not.

Now I'll step into dangerous territory. During the pandemic there were quite a few doctors and nurses, I'm told, who did not step up to the plate. My GP friend who was in the front line running a yellow clinic tells me, 'We know who they are.

I agree with Mrs ex A and her comment about restructuring of the NHS. I tried to look at the current structure when the pandemic started. Hundreds of Care Quality Commissions, and other things. It didn't even report to the SofS. Strange set up.

Does it need a comprehensive review? Yes, probably but no single political party could take it on or it will become a political football. My thought is that such a review might be a job for a Royal Commission. Just thoughts.

[om15]

Together with the news that the decoration of No 10's sitting room will cost a hundred grand and that we are borrowing trillions of pounds from somewhere or other, it might have been better to award nothing and say nothing, this has just given the unions and lefties some ammunition and caused distress among the nurses.
I think that the NHS does need a reform, it is a huge business that is not being run as a business, and it shows.

A couple of years ago I had a carpel tunnel operation, I priced it up privately and it was listed as £1200, however I thought I might as well get my monies worth and went NHS, I saw my GP, then saw a young lady with an electrical pulse machine who told me it needed doing, then saw a young chap who said it needed doing and wrote that down on a piece of paper, saw another bloke who read the piece of paper and agreed that it needed doing, then, later on had it done, there were at least six people involved in the theatre and the operation took 14 minutes, the elapsed time from start to finish was just over a year.
I can't help thinking that the cost to the NHS was far greater than the £1200 quoted by the private hospital.

My dentist ( lovely Olga) is paid for directly on a direct debit from my bank account, my doctor GP is supplied by the NHS, there is a marked difference in level of service, enthusiasm and interest in my well being.

[Pontius Navigator]

Om15, we switched from good NHS Dental practice when we moved 3 years ago to a brilliant NHS practice. This practice is open 84 hours per week. We have had two dentists attend us, both British Indian and without doubt the best we have experienced. At our checkups last month he checked jaw function as well as teeth. Treatments were booked and the NHS band charges were high by some peoples means but very reasonable even so.

[AtomKraft]

I think the NHS is greatly overhyped. For the money we could have far better provision.
For example, let those who pay for private health care pay less NI.

I've tried the health service in India and it was miles better than the UKs'.

Anyway, they should be thankful to get a pay rise, even 1%.
I got a pay cut last March of 100%.

[Pontius Navigator]

AK, remember the NI technically entitles you to a pension.
When I started work my aim was to fund my own retirement, I did not consider an OAP as an adequate retirement amount.

[AtomKraft]

They've even welched on the pension, PN. When I started work it was going to 65. By the time I got a bit older, they changed it to 67...

[Smeagol]

AK, remember the NI technically entitles you to a pension.
When I started work my aim was to fund my own retirement, I did not consider an OAP as an adequate retirement amount.

PN, I am glad you used the word 'technically', as I am sure that we all know that NI contributions just go into the general pot to be distributed as our government sees fit. If the NI contributions had been used for their intended purpose from their introduction state pensions might be much better.

And I fully agree with AtomKraft that the NHS is way overhyped. I have experienced medical care in numerous other countries and the UK is way down my list.

[Pontius Navigator]

Smeagol, in the same manner that NI pays for the NHS. It doesn't.

While I was delighted to draw my pension and my pay without deduction of NI it is really just a tax on workers income.

An honest Government would abolish NI and adjust corporation tax and income tax accordingly. The political fallout would of course be from the increased taxes with no gain from abolishing NI.

Similarly the fiction that OAP is not taxed is another slight of hand.

[barkingmad]

A hot topic in the UK at present, so I’ve exhumed this thread so’s we can all enjoy a rise in blood pressure.

With all the strikes and unrest in the NHS I wondered if this news about more resources for the beleaguered medical service will ease the pain of those who have died (!) or are awaiting a delayed diagnosis/operation or are simply in pain from not having effective medical professionals available.

Never fear, rescue is at hand with this new recruitment drive being rolled out;

https://dailysceptic.org/2023/03/31/the ... 00-a-year/

I trust we all agree that “D I E” is a worthwhile strategy around which the NHS can rally and give maximum support, together with the army of Management Consultants currently leeching buckets of dosh from the budgets whilst they advise NHS Trusts CEOs in various ways of saving money and making the whole service run better.