Pay Rise Cancelled for NHS staff

Cleaver

hullight wrote: »

My mate's dad just got a brand new Audi, courtesy of the NHS, in addition to his £40,000+ manager salary.

What is the point of statements like this? Actually, what is the point of me coming on to explain it. Both good questions, but anyway...

If your mate's Dad has a brand new Audi, he's paying for it himself if he's on a salary of £40k. Directors and Chief Execs in the NHS get a car allowance of around £5k a year, but no one else gets a car just given to them.

The rest of the NHS staff under director level are all in exactly the same car scheme, whether you're a cleaner or a doctor. It works like this:

If you do less than 3000 miles a year for work or use your car less than three days a week for work, you get standard mileage rates. This is 30p, 40p or 50p a mile (ish) depending on your car size.

If you do more than 3000 miles but less than 9000 miles you get a reduced mileage rate, but you get a regular payment each month of around £50 or £60 as you are such a regular user.

If you do more than 9000 miles a year, you are generally offered (but don't have to have, or sometimes don't get offered if the Trust doesn't want to) a lease car. The NHS lease car scheme used to be great, but isn't so much any more. On the lease car scheme you can have any car you like, but you pay a fee for it. To give you an example, I was offered a lease car about 3 years ago as I was in a job for tyhe NHS doing around 15,000 miles a year. This was the cost per month for three cars I got quotes for:

Peugeot 205: £80 per month
Alfa Romeo 159: £189 per month (I know this one exact, as that's the car I had)
Audi A4: £280 per month.

My salary was £30k at the time and I could have been driving around in an NHS Audi, but it wouldn't have cost the NHS anything above the standard leasing rate, as I would be paying to top up the better car to lease it from a private company. Theoretically, you can work for the NHS as a junior manager on £20k a year and have a Ferrari as a lease car, but you'd be paying for it yourself.

But hey, we don't want facts getting in the way of a good soundbyte, do we?

Graham_Devon

macaque wrote: »

I think you should get your coat.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article703534.ece

Why should I get my coat?

It states exactly what I said. They lease them.

handful

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Why should I get my coat?

It states exactly what I said. They lease them.

The link posted by macaque was 3 years old as well.

twirlypinky

lana22 wrote: »

Find me a nurse who doesn't do agency shifts. Every nurse I know does.
?

My mum doesn't do agency work on the side. She's a full time emplored respiritory nurse who earns £24k a year and works 4 days of 12 hour shifts, 3 days off, then 4 12hr days again or something daft like that. I'd hate that, 12 hours on your feet is a very long time, and she's often too busy to eat her lunch.

twirlypinky

donaldtramp wrote: »

Sigh,
I don't want to wait.
I don't want treatment in an MRSA infested hospital, trust me I've experienced it when my other half was in for an operation. The whole ward was shut down due to the fact it was filthy and MRSA was detected all over the ward. That's scary after just coming out of an operation. (I've now paid and she is also private from now on) Yup tax being spent wisely eh?
I will get to see a consultant straight away, no waiting or having to get through the various stages of the health service.
So nothing wrong with "my marbles".

I personally know someones grandmother who lost her life due to an MRSA infection in an NHS hospital. Yup the governement can be proud of itself. Spending money on layers of management instead of claning wards. I suspect I'm agreeing with you on this point. I wholeheartedly agree, the frontline guys do a fanatstic job with what they have been given. It's a case of lions led by donkeys I'm afraid.

You've completely missed the point of my post.

lana22

twirlypinky wrote: »

My mum doesn't do agency work on the side. She's a full time emplored respiritory nurse who earns £24k a year and works 4 days of 12 hour shifts, 3 days off, then 4 12hr days again or something daft like that. I'd hate that, 12 hours on your feet is a very long time, and she's often too busy to eat her lunch.

That rota sounds bliss. Try 12.5 hour days for 12 days straight then 2 days off. I have never, ever had a lunch break whilst at work.
Whilst I know nurses also work hard, a huge number do agency work as well.

I overheard a nurse complaining that she had worked 60 hours in a week, despite the fact that 22 hours of that was overtime. I was at the end of an 80 hour week without any overtime.

lana22

macaque wrote: »

Speaking as a patient, plenty of the doctors I have come accross have been temperamentally unfit for the job whereas tons of not so clever nurses would have made great doctors. In a quota based system that sets outstanding academic achievement as the ticket for membership, those nurses stand a slim chance against hot housed children from our best schools.

Whilst you may have a lowly status as a junior doctor today, that will not last as you climb the ladder. A common feature of hospital scandals is that junior medical staff often knew of problems but were afraid to speak out. Looking at it from the outside hierarchies in hospitals seem to be fostered for the benefit of senior staff.

There are two things that really puzzles me. How can a doctor be worth 5 times a trained nurse and why are our doctors paid so much compared to many other countries. It is not as if the record of our health service is better than those other countries. Quite the contrary in fact.

There are many nurses who would make good doctors, but most of them don't want to be one.
However I don't really see how any "not so clever nurses" would make good doctors? It's an academically very challenging career. I will be the first to admit that I found it very, very tough and I got straight As in school.
Whilst bedside manner is crucial, clinical acumen is absolutely key to being a good doctor.
It's all very well having a doctor who can talk the talk, but if they can't figure out what's wrong with you, and treat you accordingly, there's no point. Not much use having a great bedside manner if your patients end up dying through your lack of skill.
So what is wrong with having academic acheivement as (part) of the entry requirements for medical school? Plenty of people make the grade from very ordinary schools.

I also think you will find that UK doctors aren't the best paid. This data shows that and also shows that the hours we work are longer than most. Before you post some other internet drivel that you found somewhere this is actually from the BMJ, a peer reviewed journal, for you people not lucky enough to be in the "club" dictated by social class that is the medical profession:rolleyes:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/331/7530/1476-a

macaque_2

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Why should I get my coat? It states exactly what I said. They lease them.

The bill for leasing the 35,000 cars for NHS staff is now close to £90m, while the cost for new leases rose by more than 3.5% last year, according to government figures.

It is £90m out of the public purse! What surprises me is how you grab onto small differences in a vain effort to rationalise what can only be described as public sector sleaze.

'Handful' is another one clutching at straws. He spotted that the report was from 2006. Does it not occur to him that profligate spending has got worse since then. Talk about peering down the barrel before pulling the trigger.

I wonder if you guys realise how much you sound like 1970s trades unionists.

Fire_Fox

iltisman wrote: »

I think the NHS needs bonuses rather than pay increases, based on survival rates this may make them be a bit more focused on the "customer".

Do your homework, start with 'determinants of health'. :rolleyes:

Fire_Fox

macaque wrote: »

It is £90m out of the public purse! What surprises me is how you grab onto small differences in a vain effort to rationalise what can only be described as public sector sleaze.

'Handful' is another one clutching at straws. He spotted that the report was from 2006. Does it not occur to him that profligate spending has got worse since then. Talk about peering down the barrel before pulling the trigger.

I wonder if you guys realise how much you sound like 1970s trades unionists.

The National Health Service is the largest organisation in Europe. If you looked at the total cost of delivering mail or emptying bins I dare say it would shock. There are many 'frontline' PCT staff - such as district nurses, smoking cessation specialists, exercise referral practitioners - who work from several GP surgeries and numerous patients homes in a working week. What would do for mobile staff do instead, hand them a bus pass and pat them on the bottom? Or perhaps you'd prefer to pay for them to be chauffeur driven courtesy of private hire taxis? :rotfl: