The Student Room Logo
Applying to Uni for 2024? Find your Uni here and chat with others! >>
Applying to Uni for 2024? Find your Uni here and chat with others! >>
Applying to Uni for 2024? Find your Uni here and chat with others! >>

Should nurses be paid more?

The question of whether nurses should be paid more in the UK is a complex one. On the one hand, nurses play a vital role in the healthcare system and often work long and demanding hours. On the other hand, the UK government faces budget constraints and competing priorities when it comes to allocating funds. Fair Pay for nurses: here is why
What do you think?

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
Avatar for razko
razko
8
Original post by anton31
The question of whether nurses should be paid more in the UK is a complex one. On the one hand, nurses play a vital role in the healthcare system and often work long and demanding hours. On the other hand, the UK government faces budget constraints and competing priorities when it comes to allocating funds. Fair Pay for nurses: here is why
What do you think?

On the one hand, all workers in vital services like healthcare and transportation must go back to work. On other hand, it is the job of the government to balance the budget, by off-setting increased pay to the vital services workers, by negotiating for fair wage increases with the unions and also by delaying other development projects to a later date.
Reply 2
Avatar for Quady
Quady
20
Boils down to retention, whether its too high, like more than 8% and what proportion of staff are leaving due to pay as opposed to other factors.
Yes.
Yes. Tories wrecking the economy isn't their fault. Government has skimped on wages, services and investment for over a decade, so now, when rent, energy, food, petrol, bills are all rocketing up, asking Nurses and other staff to effectively take a pay cut with no outraged pushback is preposterous. We always seem to have the millions and billions to spare when it's a Tory pet project. (A demonstrably failed Brexit at 40 odd billion for a start, that would have paid a lot of people)
(edited 10 months ago)
Yes. The starting salary for nurses is £24,907. It's an utterly abysmal wage for a job that requires a minimum of three years of training and working with ****** members of the public.

I was earning almost the same amount in an entry level, office-based admin role when I left school; a role which had good hours, a comfortable working environment and no engagement with the public.
Reply 6
Avatar for Quady
Quady
20
Original post by SHallowvale
Yes. The starting salary for nurses is £24,907. It's an utterly abysmal wage for a job that requires a minimum of three years of training and working with ****** members of the public.

I was earning almost the same amount in an entry level, office-based admin role when I left school; a role which had good hours, a comfortable working environment and no engagement with the public.


Isn't that the point of the NHS?
To act as a monopolistic supplier of health care services in the UK to drive down costs by its bargaining power. Suppliers to the NHS get a rough deal compared to most other health care systems.

It's not like healthcare staff wanted to be nationalised in 1947, they just had to put up with it.
Reply 7
Avatar for Napp
Napp
22
In theory, of course. They do exquisite work in a really *****y environment (anyone with the misfortune to visit A&E knows what im talking about) on the other hand, where exactly is the money going to come from?
Reply 8
Avatar for Napp
Napp
22
Original post by StriderHort
Yes. Tories wrecking the economy isn't their fault. Government has skimped on wages, services and investment for over a decade, so now, when rent, energy, food, petrol, bills are all rocketing up, asking Nurses and other staff to effectively take a pay cut with no outraged pushback is preposterous. We always seem to have the millions and billions to spare when it's a Tory pet project. (A demonstrably failed Brexit at 40 odd billion for a start, that would have paid a lot of people)

Its always been an interesting one that, 'we have no money for this essential service' but plenty to **** away on white elephants nobody wants.
Alas, the point does still stand that the wage increase nurses want is simply unaffordable by all metrics, shy of pilfering it from somewhere else./ I wouldn't exactly object to seeing the admin staff being halved but nonetheless.
Original post by Quady
Isn't that the point of the NHS?
To act as a monopolistic supplier of health care services in the UK to drive down costs by its bargaining power. Suppliers to the NHS get a rough deal compared to most other health care systems.

It's not like healthcare staff wanted to be nationalised in 1947, they just had to put up with it.

It might be the point but I don't think that's how it should function. NHS nurses should not be paid **** salaries.
Original post by SHallowvale
It might be the point but I don't think that's how it should function. NHS nurses should not be paid **** salaries.


Agreed
Original post by Napp
Its always been an interesting one that, 'we have no money for this essential service' but plenty to **** away on white elephants nobody wants.
Alas, the point does still stand that the wage increase nurses want is simply unaffordable by all metrics, shy of pilfering it from somewhere else./ I wouldn't exactly object to seeing the admin staff being halved but nonetheless.

In reality I suspect meeting their demand in full would possibly be unworkable and NHS staff certainly aren't the only groups with valid demands for improvement, but I certainly think the Gov need to do a hell of a lot better than stonewalling, shifting blame and hiding impotently behind review bodies and at least meet them halfway. At the end of the day, if nurses are priced out of their housing and expenses, that's it, they go elsewhere to make ends meet and you end up with piles of unfilled vacancies, agency premiums and more cynical playing on staffs compassion to stress them to sacrifice and do more with less.
Reply 12
Avatar for Quady
Quady
20
Original post by SHallowvale
It might be the point but I don't think that's how it should function. NHS nurses should not be paid **** salaries.


Original post by Talkative Toad
Agreed


Cool, how much should nurses be paid then?

More or less than £108,075?
Original post by Quady
Cool, how much should nurses be paid then?

More or less than £108,075?

More than £25,000, that's for sure.
Original post by Quady
Cool, how much should nurses be paid then?

More or less than £108,075?


What Shadow said, more than £25K
Reply 15
Avatar for Quady
Quady
20
Original post by SHallowvale
More than £25,000, that's for sure.


Original post by Talkative Toad
What Shadow said, more than £25K


Right....

Cool, so £30k salary with a 10% employer contrition to a defined contribution pension?
Original post by Quady
Right....

Cool, so £30k salary with a 10% employer contrition to a defined contribution pension?

It's a good start compared to £25k. I'd personally say somewhere between £35-£40k starting, probably nearer the end of that. And also annual payrises that match inflation as a bare minimum.
Original post by SHallowvale
Yes. The starting salary for nurses is £24,907. It's an utterly abysmal wage for a job that requires a minimum of three years of training and working with ****** members of the public.

I was earning almost the same amount in an entry level, office-based admin role when I left school; a role which had good hours, a comfortable working environment and no engagement with the public.

what kind of company pays a school leaver 24k for an admin job. heck that was more than my salary when i finished uni
Reply 18
Avatar for Quady
Quady
20
Original post by SHallowvale
It's a good start compared to £25k. I'd personally say somewhere between £35-£40k starting, probably nearer the end of that. And also annual payrises that match inflation as a bare minimum.


Well you might think it'd be a good start, I suspect their union would be insulted to suggest reducing the compensation package.
Reply 19
Avatar for Mess.
Mess.
20
One of the public oerceptiij issues the nurses have for me is the idiots who speak on their behalf.

There was a nurse on the guardian podcast saying that nurses deserve to be paid more because they ‘wipe your arse’. I understand what she is trying to get but if that’s the reason you need to be paid more then to be frank, basically anyone could do that. They need to focus on the medical care they provide, what they bring to the medical side and explaining why they are saying they’re overworked despite literally every time I’ve been on hospital over the last 30 years (and it’s a fair amount) there are always a group of between 4-6 nurses just standing around having a gab whilst patients are ignored.

The other thing they need to retire is the foodbank myth. I appreciate that the odd nurse will have to use a foodbank but if the majority of nurses (at an average salary of circa £32k) are having to use foodbank a then either more than half the country are using foodbanks or they’re terrible with money, which makes them come across as idiots.

A final thing is (anecdotally) the NHS crisis/waiting times etc. appears to come from lack of doctors as much as anything. Even when you are seen by a nurse, there can be no actual assistance or discharging until a doctor appears. Doctors randomly seem to appear on wards circa every 4-6 hours so between 2-3 times a shift. Does that not mean that doctors should be the focus, how to retain and attract, to try and get patients through the hospital system quicker?

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Trending

Latest