Plenty of money for houses....but not for nurses

Graham_Devon

The government has called for yet another halt on NHS pay in england, stating that £700m could be saved if a rise is withheld for 1.3m NHS staff in England.

Yet they hemorrhage money on the housing market, HS2 etc.

Unions have criticised government calls to halt a rise in NHS pay in England.
Increases across the public sector have been capped at 1%, but the Department of Health wants to withhold this rise for its 1.3m staff.
It told the NHS pay review body the rise was not affordable alongside the current system of small, automatic annual rises.
Rachael Maskell of the Unite trade union said staff deserved the pay reward for "holding the NHS together".
Health trusts are currently under pressure to make savings and the NHS wage bill accounts for around 40% of its budget.
The Department of Health (DoH) proposes using the funding intended for the 1% rise to "modernise" pay structures.
It says these increments - linked to length of service and satisfactory performance - add £700m to salary costs.
But the DoH has stressed no decisions on changes to pay have been taken, insisting independent bodies will make their recommendations next year.

Now, while I realise there won't be much love on this particular section on the forum for any wage rises at all in the public sector...surely the government is taking a risk pumping money into banks, the housing market, HS2 etc, but doing this yet again to the NHS. If it's done to the NHS, it will be to the police etc too.

The government have suggested that pay increases should only be given if "there is strong evidence that recruitment, retention, morale or motivation issues require this".

In other words, squeeze them until they squeal. Race to the bottom stuff.

The chairman of the BMA has suggested it's incredibly insulting for the government to imply that if NHS staff do not accept this pay cut, the NHS staff themselves will be putting patient safety at risk.

As I say, I know I will be pretty much a lone voice on this on here, but haven't NHS staff done their bit now? Wouldn't mind so much if money wasn't being funneled into other sectors.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24408681

chewmylegoff

"Not affordable alongside the system of small automatic pay rises". So not a real terms cut (unless you're right at the top of your pay band I suppose). Most people don't get automatic payrises every year and then an inflationary adjustment on top. Probably time that the NHS was brought into line.

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

The government has called for yet another halt on NHS pay in england, stating that £700m could be saved if a rise is withheld for 1.3m NHS staff in England.

Yet they hemorrhage money on the housing market, HS2 etc.


Now, while I realise there won't be much love on this particular section on the forum for any wage rises at all in the public sector...surely the government is taking a risk pumping money into banks, the housing market, HS2 etc, but doing this yet again to the NHS. If it's done to the NHS, it will be to the police etc too.

The government have suggested that pay increases should only be given if "there is strong evidence that recruitment, retention, morale or motivation issues require this".

In other words, squeeze them until they squeal. Race to the bottom stuff.

The chairman of the BMA has suggested it's incredibly insulting for the government to imply that if NHS staff do not accept this pay cut, the NHS staff themselves will be putting patient safety at risk.

As I say, I know I will be pretty much a lone voice on this on here, but haven't NHS staff done their bit now? Wouldn't mind so much if money wasn't being funneled into other sectors.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24408681

the government have frozen state pay for all it's workers: the reason that NHS are mentioned separately is because they have an 'independent ' pay body so the NHS are being treated no differently from other state sector workers

Graham_Devon

chewmylegoff wrote: »

"Not affordable alongside the system of small automatic pay rises". So not a real terms cut (unless you're right at the top of your pay band I suppose). Most people don't get automatic payrises every year and then an inflationary adjustment on top. Probably time that the NHS was brought into line.

While I agree, I must point out that the reason for the automatic increases was precisely to cut pay.

I.e. when they introduced this system, they REDUCED the pay levels for new starters.

For example, if the average nurse position commanded £100 a year, they reduced this so that they would start on £90 a year and then work up to the standard wage.

By all means get rid of the automatic pay rises, but it would put the wage bill up.

They didn't create the system so that NHS employees all became better paid. They introduced it so that those just starting were lower paid and worked up to the standard wage.

People don't generally see this though. They just see "incremented pay" and scoff. They never see "incremented pay from a reduced level" as it wouldn't make the same point.

Loughton_Monkey

"…the biggest reform we make on pay is to automatic progression pay. This is the practice whereby many employees not only get a pay rise every year, but also automatically move up a pay grade every single year – regardless of performance. Some public sector employees see annual pay rises of seven per cent. Progression pay can at best be described as antiquated; at worst, it’s deeply unfair to other parts of the public sector who don’t get it and to the private sector who have to pay for it. So we will end automatic progression pay in the civil service by 2015-16. And we are working to remove automatic pay rises simply for time served in our schools, nhs, prisons and police. The armed forces will be excluded from these reforms."

So when a lot are getting 7% rise plus the 1%, you disagree that we should keep it down to 7%?

Who else is getting an 8% pay rise this year?

C_Mababejive

Many in the private sector are being served up with like it or hike it pay cuts..

Graham_Devon

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

So when a lot are getting 7% rise plus the 1%, you disagree that we should keep it down to 7%?

Who else is getting an 8% pay rise this year?

Would you rather thay just started on the normal wage, and therefore we avoided the pay increments?

I'm sure NHS staff would prefer that too.

thick_tom

since when did governments get their priorities right ??

Loughton_Monkey

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Would you rather thay just started on the normal wage, and therefore we avoided the pay increments?

I'm sure NHS staff would prefer that too.

Of course if we want to, we can throw money into compounding an anomaly that Gordon Brown seems to have caused...

Britain has one of the highest rates of avoidable deaths.

Every year, 74 deaths out of 100,000 could have been
prevented. In Western Europe, only Portugal and Denmark have a worse record.

The OECD estimates that these avoidable deaths cut three years off the average life - about two and a half years for women and three and a half years for men.

The report also concludes that the NHS is the seventh most inefficient health system in the OECD. If we spent NHS money as wisely as those in other countries, our life expectancy could be up to three and a half years higher.

And the healthier population would in the long run save almost 4 per cent of our national economic output - more than £50billion.
Nevertheless, despite our shortcomings on healthcare, we pay our GPs more handsomely in the UK than anywhere else.

When the comparison was made, GPs got an average salary of £110,000. Pay freezes and other actions have since reduced this to £106,000 - although that is 40 per cent more than what they were earning before the signed a lucrative contract in 2003.

However, the salary is much higher than the £61,000 average across the OECD - and the £57,000 paid to French GPs.
Our hospital consultants are now the sixth best paid in the OECD. They are on about £110,000, compared to the OECD average of £80,000 and far higher than payments in France and Germany.

Despite the hard work and professionalism of many individuals within our health service, all we have seen recently is increased evidence of a totally broken system. Professionals within the broken system seem to be highly paid already. Throwing even more money at them by way of salary is not the answer.

The_Magnificent_Spoon

I've had two pay rises in my private sector job in two years.

One was for completing a professional certification which meant I could be charged out to certain jobs for over 100% more than previous rate, for which I was given a 3% raise.

The other was when I took on an extra 5 hours work a week and got paid pro rata for this.

Welcome to how life works.

lindsaygalaxy

Pay bands are not continual, once you get there thats it, and to get there you have to already take on a lot more responsibility. I actually think it is fair that you start on pay lower than someone with more experience, but as I said - it is only for a few years then you cannot get paid any more. So there is a much bigger % of people who haven't had any pay rise in years, yet the work load keeps increasing.