NHS Strike

[FantasyIreland]

.....and in many cases the quality of candidate willing to replace the person who has left the NHS is of a lesser standard.
People are reluctantly accepting that improved terms and conditions along with a better work/life balance can be found elsewhere.

 

[Bill]

.....and in many cases the quality of candidate willing to replace the person who has left the NHS is of a lesser standard.
People are reluctantly accepting that improved terms and conditions along with a better work/life balance can be found elsewhere.

yes, and thats abroad. its a bloody cying shame this goes on. if i leave these shores(still have to convince the wife)it will be purely for warmer days and a better cleaner enviroment. these people have to just to make a living. terrible.

 

[metalblue]

So in cold hard reality it's economics. That's what I was trying to find. We may not like it, it may not be fair but as my boss is fond of saying if you don't like your job/pay/conditions then you know where the door is, there are plenty of people just waiting to replace you.

Believe it or not, that gets said in the Public Sector too. By senior managers at office meetings.
Now, imagine if nurses, doctors, teachers, the Inland Revenue or in fact anyone on the front line did that en masse. The infrastructure in the country would collapse pretty quickly.

It would and it would be tragic but I think there has to be masses leaving the profession and no new people coming into it before the government (any government) to take serious action. As urmston posted there are many many more applicants than posts available.

And yet we've had to recruit from outside the UK to fill gaps in nursing levels, I think it's something like 2,500 extra nurses came last year for the EU partly in response (I would imagine) to the governments decision to cut 10,000 training places in 2010...those nurses would have just been qualifying at the time. I'm sure Portugal's tax payers are delighted.

There is no significant private sector provider of nursing employment and those that do exist have no reason to pay anything more. The problem where market forces don't exist is the employees have no choice but to take matters into their own hands. Not that it really matters here as nurses will never withdraw labour in any meaningful sense, there is something rather british about holding a banner on your day off. And, whilst that remains the case, nurses will continue to gain a lot of sympathy from the public and any government needs to remember that in any battle versus nurses the majority of the public will always side with nurses.

 

[M18CTID]

I'm not someone who is in favour of strike action but ffs, it's not like the nurses are asking for the earth here and making wholly unrealistic demands. 1% pay rises aren't worth a fucking wank so I'm not surprised they're pissed off.

 

[BlueBearBoots]

I'm not someone who is in favour of strike action but ffs, it's not like the nurses are asking for the earth here and making wholly unrealistic demands. 1% pay rises aren't worth a fucking wank so I'm not surprised they're pissed off.

isnt it 1% on top of the 3% that 55% of NHS workers are already getting that the dispute is about?

 

[Allnightlong]

If there are so many applicants for these vacancies why are there no, or very few ambulances available in London. A large % of crews are leaving to go abroad, private etc and are not getting replaced. Advice to casualties in accidents are being told to get taxis to hospital.
So perhaps people when being told "if you don't like it, there's the door" are actually leaving and soon someone will have to turn the light out!

 

[remember arthur mann]

If there are so many applicants for these vacancies why are there no, or very few ambulances available in London. A large % of crews are leaving to go abroad, private etc and are not getting replaced. Advice to casualties in accidents are being told to get taxis to hospital.
So perhaps people when being told "if you don't like it, there's the door" are actually leaving and soon someone will have to turn the light out!

Just what this government wants, smash the NHS, stuff the peasants, "We're all right Jack !

 

[adrianr]

We went on strike for 4 hours from 7-11, the unions offered us the opportunity as ambulance staff to either respond to no calls or just to the most urgent life saving ones (known as red 1 and red 2 calls) everybody I know decided that we would respond to these as no one needed to die for us to get our point accross. The managers who control dispatch then just re-coded all the shit jobs we usually get as red 1/2 calls and we worked straight through, going to such emergencies as 3 year history of not taking medication correctly for chronic arthritis. The management used the fact that we have pride and professionalism in what we do and threw the strike action back in our face. We are leaving in droves and I now believe the good will we show towards our jobs is waining. There will be strike action again and maybe this time people won't be so lucky and we won't attend anything.

Is that not really bloody dangerous? Are jobs not coded by severity for a reason?

 

[Kazzydeyna]

Wasn't it for 20 mins or something. Wow, damaging. Lol.

Well said.

Let's hope you never need the NHS eh?

Or on second thoughts....

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

I'm not someone who is in favour of strike action but ffs, it's not like the nurses are asking for the earth here and making wholly unrealistic demands. 1% pay rises aren't worth a fucking wank so I'm not surprised they're pissed off.

isnt it 1% on top of the 3% that 55% of NHS workers are already getting that the dispute is about?

The !% was recommended by the pay commission across all levels of nursing staff. The 3% represents an increase to those nurses who are undergoing 'training' and is in recognition that over the last twelve months they will have developed their skills. Graduate Nurses (yes they have a degree or Nursing Diploma) start at £21,388, rising to £27,901due to this 'step' increase in the early years