NHS Strike

[bgblue]

I value the work of NHS staff - at about 5 to 10% less than we pay them at the moment.

Like the government I certainly don't value it at 1% more than they are currently paid. They are still getting quite good wages in historical terms because of the large amounts of our money Blair and Brown threw at them without any economic reason for doing so and to no corresponding benefit to the public.

We can probably keep them on a wage freeze for a few more years before some medical staff are less easy to recruit and retain, and we could probably sack many of the NHS's bloated bureaucracy immediately without any loss of service to patients.

What are your dealings with the NHS? And what do you actually do as a job?

This would help so people could see what angle your views are coming from

Cheers

Can I have a guess??




Tory MP?

 

[bgblue]

I value the work of NHS staff - at about 5 to 10% less than we pay them at the moment.

Like the government I certainly don't value it at 1% more than they are currently paid. They are still getting quite good wages in historical terms because of the large amounts of our money Blair and Brown threw at them without any economic reason for doing so and to no corresponding benefit to the public.

We can probably keep them on a wage freeze for a few more years before some medical staff are less easy to recruit and retain, and we could probably sack many of the NHS's bloated bureaucracy immediately without any loss of service to patients.

What are your dealings with the NHS? And what do you actually do as a job?

This would help so people could see what angle your views are coming from

Cheers

Can I have a guess??




Tory MP?

 

[Allnightlong]

Probably failed exams to nursing or another NHS job.

 

[metalblue]

Oh , I see. A person must have lots of 'personal interaction' with the NHS to be able to have a valid opinion on NHS pay rises. How convenient. Most people with that interaction will be NHS staff, so using your reasoning they should simply decide on their own pay rises and tell the rest of us to pay up.

The NHS employs well over a million people and costs taxpayers billion of pounds per year.

When deciding on pay rises for its staff we need to look at supply and demand, market forces, what the rises will cost, if they can be afforded by the taxpayer etc etc.

We can't just rely on platitudes about our NHS being the envy of the world and all nurses being angels when it comes to deciding NHS pay rates, though it seems many NHS staff seem to think this is what we should do.

Why do you have to keep banging about taxpayers. Everybody pays tax every day why do you appear to think you have more right to bang on then anybody else.

The NHS is socialised medicine. A system that has brought unparralled growth in in our nations health since it was established. The nurses on my ward never bang on about pay, more conditions, but everyone of them is 100% dedicated to there chosen profession in a way which makes me very proud.


You mention market forces should decide, i would counter that as it is socialised medicine the Govt should decide and if need be raise taxes accordingly. After all who would not want a cradle to grave system of healtcare and an evergrowing healthy population

Our NHS and its socialised form is indeed responsible for the tremendous improvement in the UK's health since 1948. But other comparable countries have experienced equal or greater increases in health, and they don't have the NHS.

That's because the main drivers of a nation's improving health care are science, technology and the wealth of the nation's economy which enables its people to pay for better healthcare and to afford better food. The precise organisation of the country's health system is not an important factor. There is nothing particularly special about the NHS or its staff. Countries with private provision of health care financed by insurance models have just as good healthcare as the UK, and in many cases it is better.

Even in a socialised health system like the NHS market forces must dictate staff pay. People paid by the public must be paid roughly in accordance to their skills. For the state to pay a nurse more than he or she would be likely to earn in a comparable job of similar skill levels and requiring similar educational ability would be unfair on taxpayers.

Some NHS staff have a regrettable tendency to regard themselves as especially wonderful people who kindly provide the rest of us with health care, and are therefore deserving of special, generous treatment when it comes to pay and terms and conditions.

They should remember that the people who make the NHS possible are taxpayers. They fund the NHS. They are the most important people as far as the NHS goes.

NHS staff are merely people who sell their labour to the taxpayers in return for wages, and like all workers they demand and get market related wages dependent on their skills. This is why a doctor gets paid more than a nurse and a nurse gets paid more than a nursing assistant.

Nurses (at least all newly qualified ones) have a scientific degree. Comparable qualification salaries in link below

http://www.reed.co.uk/average-salary/scientific

So by your own metric you agree degree educated nurses are underpaid. I don't have any problem with the free-market principles you are applying to your wage logic but sadly it is undone by the fact we have a national settlement for the NHS...you would need to apply individual settlement to the NHS. Assuming that happened (which it won't) would you expect to see wage inflation, stagnation, or decline in that scenario and why?

 

[metalblue]

I'm still thinking he's simply a whopper.

Please tell us your occupation Urmston?

Sounds like someone who used to be a guard at Alcatraz.

Back on topic, the tories are playing a dangerous game here. A lot of people rightly value the work of NHS staff. Could come back to bite them on the arse at the next election.

I can't see that the NHS will be any safer in Labour hands. The problem is that throwing money at it is not the solution. There are far, far too many layers of management, and way too much time spent on targets. Granted that targets are needed, but the administrative burden that goes along with them is shocking. There are managers, with their own team of administrators who are responsible for just keeping track of the targets. If targets are missed, then this team will harangue the clinical staff, and therein lies the problem. Clinical staff will spend an inordinate amount of their time on administrative tasks.

There is a happy medium to be had, but unfortunately the ship has sailed. Rather than reducing the admin burden in the NHS, every year it gets worse. Labour didn't lessen this burden when they were in, so I can't for the life of me see why the Tories are being blamed for fucking it up any more than Labour did. Oh, and as I've said before, Brown burdened the NHS with a fucking shocking amount of PFI deals, and whether Labour voters like it or not, the NHS are paying through the fucking nose for those deals.

The biggest single problem with the NHS is bureaucracy. And the solution is very simple; put doctors and nurses back in charge.

Unfortunately politicians want measurable outcomes for their investment...they do this because they learnt at school or some workshop that that is how to establish you value-for-money metric. To collate this information they employed an army of managers with no clinical experience but good at putting together spreadsheets. But the NHS is different, good health outcomes are not valued by the number of patients seen but by clinical necessity. But the politician wants to be able to say for £x we treated y, easy sound bites that fly around the media and parliament. Any investment will always be met with a new list of metrics dreamt up in some workshops and not evidence based logic that our NHS is built on.

I don't care how long someone has to wait in A&E, I don't want them forced through in 4 hours and them onto an admission ward if they haven't been discharged. I don't want some manager pointing the finger at a doctor because they breached some artificial time limit. I don't want the government to fine that hospital. I want the NHS to treat on clinical need alone, nothing more and nothing less, I want to be that person sat 6 hours in A&E waiting to be seen, why? Because if I'm sat there I know I'm not about to die, it's the person who is rushed in you should pity not yourself for having to wait a few hours.

 

[Anonymous]

Urmston's occupation is to wind you lot up. Isn't "fling the board" or some such against the COC? If not, carry on.

 

[mcmanus]

Tbf there are excellent workers in the NHS and bad ones too just the same as in the private sector just pisses me off that some ppl like to glorify NHS workers they aren't all angles !!!

You what?

The past few years I've had to visit hospital more times than I care to remember. I have been treated brilliantly 99% of the time, I have been really ill but their geniune professionalism and care helped me out no end. I do glorify them.

One of my proudest moments is when I walk down the street with my ex nurse mam who give up 15/20 years ago and people stop her and still say thank you for looking after them or a departed loved one.

..... they maybe not angles they are angels.

 

[urmston]

Probably failed exams to nursing or another NHS job.

I've never applied for an NHS job.

However, I have taught student nurses some rather basic maths - the kind of stuff I'd mastered soon after leaving primary school. It was slightly worrying to know that these people might one day be required to measure out a dose of a drug for a patient or to interpret numerical data, but I suppose things are made as simple as possible for them.

I've no problem with skilled NHS staff getting decent wages, or even superb ones where appropriate, but I do think some of them have an inflated opinion of their own abilities, skills and personal qualities, and perhaps this is why they think they need premium wages and more protection from economic downturns than the people who pay their wages.

 

[Bill Walker]

Tbf there are excellent workers in the NHS and bad ones too just the same as in the private sector just pisses me off that some ppl like to glorify NHS workers they aren't all angles !!!

You what?

The past few years I've had to visit hospital more times than I care to remember. I have been treated brilliantly 99% of the time, I have been really ill but their geniune professionalism and care helped me out no end. I do glorify them.

One of my proudest moments is when I walk down the street with my ex nurse mam who give up 15/20 years ago and people stop her and still say thank you for looking after them or a departed loved one.

..... they maybe not angles they are angels.

sensible post bbb I agree , when my misses worked for the NHS we knew a few cretins who you wouldnt trust to look after your dog but also loads of good ones who loved what they do.

looks like the highly indignant mcanus after another argument as per fucking usual

 

[pantalon violet again]

Unless your mate is a nurse, your wife or your husband or girlfriend or boyfriend or you know a nurse then frankly your opinion is fucking mute if you don't respect what they do for so little cash

These heroes are the bedrock of our health system and to see some fat bloated Tory ****, cigar in mouth eating foie gras at the gentleman's club putting it on expenses whilst discussing a 1% rise for our nurses is frankly sickening .
I would gladly go all ISIS on these cunts given the chance