[Closed] NHS Staff - is more pay the answer?

I think the mess that the NHS is in comes from Labour and PFI.

Increased salaries might be a good thing but money is a short term motivator and the NHS needs saving so that people are pleased with what they're delivering. I wonder if at some point a government will have to bite the bullet and buyout the PFI. Having a devolved NHS has robbed it of its greatest benefits which were collective bargaining power and economies of scale, especially with regard to administration.

I'm not sure Conservatives are screwing the NHS and suspect even Corbyn's best line is "It is Labour's mess so give us the chance to fix it".

"Some specialties would benefit and stop the movement of staff from NHS to Private however to do that would be a massive % increase i.e. £1,000's per employee not just the odd 0.5% here or there!"Some specialties would benefit and stop the movement of staff from NHS to Private however to do that would be a massive % increase i.e. £1,000's per employee not just the odd 0.5% here or there!"

Good point I hadn't thought of that.

Slightly irratates me when they bang on about NHS. Other PS workers have suffered zero pay rises/pay cuts continually over the years.

2 PS workers in this house.

My wife isn't that poorly paid. Earns more part time than I do full time. But her working conditions are shocking. Many managers at her work needs think of their staff and conditions more than shuffling paper.

Agree. Ring fencing really pisses me off. If they'd hadn't ring fenced the NHS the other cuts would hardly have been noticeable. That's democracy though.

Mrs has been a nurse for years, always says she wouldn't want it higher paid as it would attract the wrong type, I can kinda see her point.

It doesn't seem a pay issue, more of a bursting at the seems issue, In England and Wales anyway, we don't see the same under-performance up here I believe.

We would all like a little extra cash, we could all find a way of spending that extra, but the extra pound that goes in the pocket of staff is a pound taken away from patient care and I think that most people would agree that the money should be spent on patients.

There's no doubt that resources are overstretched, and I think that includes many staff being overworked (or possibly underpaid, depending on positions). More staff would definitely help matters. Part of the problem might be mismanagement, but the bigger part in underfunding. It's very simple: if we want a good NHS with adequate resources to meet growing demand, we need to pay more for it. Higher taxes (and recouping unpaid taxes from business) is pretty much inevitable for this. I'm happy with that. Anyone who tells you this isn't the situation is either in ill informed, in denial or pulling the wool over the electorate's eyes. Exactly the same with schools, where 'per-head' funding is shrinking, despite Government claims.

Don't get me started on that ring fencing rubbish.

Yeah lets ring fence NHS budgets and then cut social care budgets, adding extra strain on the NHS! That makes sense.

As for pay, I wouldn't say no, this year my pay increase meant I took home an extra £23 a month.... so paid for the petrol to Llandegla, not sure how I am getting home 😉

Youve got to increase staff numbers somehow

I collect cancer samples from operations in several hospitals across london, so get a weekly email of whats coming up, some hospitals (usually those in special measures) are constantly cancelling ops due to lack of beds and staff, ive been doing the job for 3 years and this is by far the worst ive ever seen it, some patients have consented to our study, so i get updates on their status, then had urgent ops cancelled multiple times.

Reintroducing bursaries for nurses is essential, theres record numbers quiting and 10s of thousands of nursing places unfilled

the weak £ (+ brexit uncertainty) means we are less attractive to foreign staff that are essential to keep the NHS running and I know of several Jr Docs who have left for sunnier climes (and easier rotas) over Jeremy Hunt & the contract changes.

but the extra pound that goes in the pocket of staff is a pound taken away from patient care and I think that most people would agree that the money should be spent on patients.

But at the rate staff are leaving at my wife's work there will be no one left to look after the patients.what do you do then?

Ah yes agency staff who cost way more than my wife's rate.

So many have left and went on bank staff earn more do shifts you want to do and the NHS staff are left to fill in the shit shifts.

Policy Announcement Day 4: bring our health spend per capita in line with other western european countries.

Nope, increasing nurses pay in of itself will make litttle difference.

NHS needs a lot more more money for everything including pay. I recently had a long chat with a Junior Doctor keen to get into finance. His pay is ludicrously low and it will never change until politicians of all sides get realistic with the public about what its going to take finaicially to fund the health care we want. He is a very smart hard working guy and his talents will be much better rewarded outside of the NHS, he is fed up and not interested in medicine abroad.

Policy Announcement Day 4: bring our health spend per capita in line with other western european countries.

The main problem in the UK is the below average private spend. Its perfectly normal in the rest of Europe to pay something towards your vists to the doctor / hospital. They have much higher taxes too btw. That is not enough in of itself.

EDIT: we have discussed this before and I am repeating what I have posted before

See this link (I can't post variois charts as photobucket is not working properly)

We soend 8.5% gdp and EU average in 10.1 as they have higher private spending as public/private is properly integrated and state does not pay 100% for many treatments / visits

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2016/01/how-does-nhs-spending-compare-health-spending-internationally

I think just keeping wages up with inflation would be a good idea, this has not happened for years (probably the same with other PS workers apart from MPs)

More staff is the answer.
The nurses I know are all looking to leave the NHS due to understaffing… a vicious circle.

Is renumeration the answer to the staffing problem?
There are other things I'd look to first, but if it was any other "industry" we'd all assume pay was key.

As loath as I am to join the party, a pay rise isn't even taking a sticking plaster to a gushing wound.

It'll take several parliamentary terms to undo the damage that Jeremy Hunt has done to the NHS workforce. I'd suppose looking at training numbers (unclusing UCAS applications) would give some foresight..

One thing's for sure, Theresa May opening up our NHS to US firms isn't going to help matters. That's why she isn't exactly shouting about this move - it's something she stealthily agreed to as part of her ass-kissing of Trump now that we're out of Europe and beholden to America. Then Trump quickly and unsurprisingly dumped on us. Genius.

Is renumeration the answer to the staffing problem?
There are other things I'd look to first, but if it was any other "industry", we'd all assume pay was key.

Yup. But as FunkyDunc says, the kind of pay rise that would actually make a difference is a world away from the payrise that is possible.

I'm guessing the other problem is there are probably pay rules that prevent the NHS offering new starters more than existing staff. In the private sector if you're short of staff you can offer new interviewees 20pc more and recruit new staff fast without increasing your existing staff pay at all so the impact on your overall salary bill is negligable.

Yes, more pay would help.

As much as we like to think about selfless nurses, paramedics, physios etc working for peanuts due to the love of the job the reality is quite different.

Just had my annual appraisal, my manager described me as a paramedic second to none, said he's desperate not to lose me and I'm well liked in the job.....all nice to hear but doesn't pay for a holiday this year, or put a motorbike in my garage etc.
Work has to be about more than just the job itself.

This week alone (and it's only Wednesday) I've had offers from private providers willing to pay between £35 - £50 per hour for my skills.
I could work 2, maybe 3 times a week and earn more than I do full time in the NHS!

It's seriously tempting, now if the NHS were to give me a 10k pay rise (never gonna happen) I'd happily sit tight and see out my remaining years with it.

That's the real battle the NHS has right now, a lot of good staff are wondering why they slog and stress for £20k - £30k a year when they could move into the private sector and double their money overnight.

Just slightly OT for this thread, since introduction of the new Jnr Doc contract, pay costs have gone up. Dr's are now claiming for every hour worked, and more worryingly saying that there shift has finished, see ya!

Another roaring success and culture change for the better....

[i]Mrs has been a nurse for years, always says she wouldn't want it higher paid as it would attract the wrong type, I can kinda see her point.[/i]

Lucky woman. My friend has had a pay freeze since 2011 and got 1% this year. (Equates to a 25% pay cut.) Money is about the same as I was on in 1990. For NURSING! With University degrees! I didn't even get A Levels. Its insane.

[i] theres record numbers quiting and 10s of thousands of nursing places unfilled[/i]
Not at all surprising given the conditions.

. In the private sector if you're short of staff you can offer new interviewees 20pc more and recruit new staff fast without increasing your existing staff pay at all so the impact on your overall salary bill is negligable.

Good luck with that. Is there a faster way to lose key and experienced staff than this approach?

As I said, they are other things that need addressing first as regard NHS staffing, pay isn't top of any one's list, but you wouldn't rule it out when looking at staffing in any other "industry", so don't for one of our most vital ones.

Good luck with that. Is there a faster way to lose key and experienced staff than this approach?

That approach relies on people not knowing each other's salaries so is a non-starter in NHS where bands and associated salaries are clear to everyone (which is a good thing)

Is renumeration the answer to the staffing problem?

'The Market' gets to decide everything doesn't it? That's the gospel? The unimpeachable mantra? The truism that cannot be questioned?

Well we've been told consistently for decades that unless we pay bankers and boardroom execs increasingly obscene sums of money then they'll simply up sticks and go and work for someone else.

Yet giving a mass of people year-on-year pay freezes, so effectively a pay cut, shouldn't elicit the same decision making process

Just the usual selective capitalism ideology being applied

Is renumeration the answer to the staffing problem?

Unless you meant remuneration ? No, no, no - that'll never do !

<applies for flashheart junior pedant badge>

"(which is a good thing)"

Unless you want to recruit in which case it makes it eye wateringly expensive

Well we've been told consistently for decades that unless we pay bankers and boardroom execs increasingly obscene sums of money then they'll simply up sticks and go and work for someone else.

Too right.

You need to pay the money to get the best talent goes the free market saying.

So why doesn't it apply here?

One thing's for sure, Theresa May opening up our NHS to US firms isn't going to help matters.

The NHS "opened up" to US firms under Blair / Brown - that's when the likes of Humana first opened for business in the UK. What's happened in the interim is that the level of private sector activity in the NHS has changed very little in % terms - from around 5% when Labour left office to around 6.5% now. So opening the NHS for business to US firms has actually had almost no effect.

On the other points above:

- The NHS is struggling in Scotland and Wales, so its problems aren't just reflective of the national government because Labour run it in Wales and the SNP north of the border.
- the GDP comparison isn't always a reliable one because if some EU systems include social care costs in overall spending whereas in the UK a lot of social care budgets sits with Councils and is thus reported seperately. So the real UK figure is somewhat higher and closer to the EU average.
- Patient co-pay or insurance has to be part of the discussion in order to reduce the inappropriate use of NHS resources - but this needs to be done in a way whereby people who are in need of care don't see it as a barrier.
- More pay won't increase capacity or flow of patients. Even if Labour do succeed in closing down private sector provision the number of qualified staff will remain the same.

I'd like to see some policy that:
-[b] Takes any increased funding to create more posts [/b]in order to relieve the pressure on staff. As others have said many people have had low / no pay rises for many years now, often on salaries that are far lower than the NHS and without the additional benefits of a defined benefit pension.
- [b]Transforms the way the NHS operates[/b] - getting things right first time and learning from its mistakes more quickly - the £56B provision for NHS negligence is an obscene waste of money and reflects the significant numbers of patients who die or come to harm due to often quite basic oversights in care
- [b]Harnesses technology[/b] to remove waste and duplication
- [b]Uses the resources that are already there more efficiently[/b] e.g. diverting some of the excess primary care workload to community pharmacies which are often open longer than GP surgeries and staffed by pharmacists who could easily take a significant share of the primary care burden.

no

when i worked in the nhs 15 years ago i remember staff would leave on a friday and come back on the same ward as agency staff.

How about putting rules around agency fees, capping the maximum an agency can make by placement and or hourly fees.

the nhs will never have enough money but it could be managed far better and avoid the bulk of money going into the fatcats pockets whether thats management, agency supplying nursing staff, third party suppliers or the various funding strategies of the past few decades.

GPs/consultants are earning huge sums (2/3 final salary pensions on top) and the shortage is due to being able to retire a wealthy lifestyle at a young age and/or earn on the side privately.

why havent we scrapped final salary pensions for new starters, its been a pack of cards stacked high for years,

NHS needs a lot more more money for everything including pay

I thought that was being proposed here. More money for staff?

And in your text the Junior Doctor will clear off to be better rewarded?

"So why doesn't it apply here?"

It does, that's why there's a shortage of nurses.

whatyadoinsucka - restrictions on agency pricing/staffing already exist.
just5minutes - staff are leaving to go to other countries, or leaving healthcare completely.

just5minutes - staff are leaving to go to other countries, or leaving healthcare completely.

This is certainly true in Primary Care (with around 3/4 of all GPs now working part time) but simply reflects the level of pay is such that many doctors have chosen to work less because they don't need the extra pay or pension contributions.

In Secondary Care I suspect that staff are leaving for a number of reasons, the principle one being that of the experience of working in an often pressured and chaotic environment. Simply paying more or adding staff won't address the underlying root cause which is lack of organisation, failure to address the real issues impacting the flow of patients from A&E to wards, or the lack of effective working / integration with social care.

There's also a plank missing to the policies of all 3 main parties in England namely that of transforming the health of the population by things like:

- encouraging more walking / cycling to school, work and shops etc
- tipping the balance on food consumption to make the most unhealthy choices far more expensive
- encouraging employers to create workplaces where physical and mental wellbeing is seen as a real responsibility
- addressing the obesity / diabetes time bomb head on with a nationwide strategy

My wife works in dosimetry in the radiotherapy department at our local NHS hospital, whilst pay will always be an issue, the NHS requires both more funding and cutting out of wasteful middle-managers and becoming a lot more efficient overall, there is so much wastage it's daft.

She previously worked at a large Surrey hospital where they paid a "London retention bonus" as it was not far for staff to travel into London and earn a lot more, this got cut, staff unsurprisingly went to London and they plugged the gaps with agency staff and at much higher pay rate and agency fees.

On the cancer ward she works on now, the ridiculous targets mean that instead of treating the most urgent patients first with cord compression's and the like, they often have to treat patients with a lot less aggressive and urgent cancers over them because they have been waiting longer, despite the fact they don't need to be seen as quickly. They then have them working weekends at time and a half to catch on urgent patients because the scheduling has been taken out of their hands due to the daft targets they've been set. Often they have her "on call" at weekends to go in to treat an urgent patient which for us living in a rural area with no mobile reception outside of our house in a 15 mile radius, means we are stuck at home waiting for the phone to ring.

How about putting rules around agency fees, capping the maximum an agency can make by placement and or hourly fees.

avoid the bulk of money going into the fatcats pockets

In Secondary Care I suspect that staff are leaving for a number of reasons, the principle one being that of the experience of working in an often pressured and chaotic environment. Simply paying more or adding staff won't address the underlying root…

Pressure of understaffing can most certainly be alleviated by recruiting more staff, or more petenant to the current situation, be exasperated by losing more staff.

GPs/consultants are earning huge sums (2/3 final salary pensions on top) and the shortage is due to being able to retire a wealthy lifestyle at a young age and/or earn on the side privately.

As a GP I earn well. No doubt about it.
However, with my skills (decision making, actions etc) and 'personality' I could probably earn £150+ in a city/market job, but i don't really want to do that.

However, I think the reason people are leaving the GP profession (or, more sepcifically, no longer withing to take up partnership roles - the cornerstone of running primary care) is that, simply put, people don't want the workload and hastle any more.

I've friends and colleagues earning more than I do (they're on about £85-100/hr) as locums - they turn up, work 8-1300, and go home.
I come in at 0730 on a Wednesday and 'mop up' all the work they haven't done.
They see the pateints (which can be fun) and then stamp out their cards.

For each hour of patinet contact, there's AT LEAST 1 - 1.5 hours of 'background' work need doing.

People don't want that, so they don't do it.

If my practice received more money, I'd [s]buy a travers ti frame[/s] employ more staff to do paperwork/audits/etc etc - this would free me up for more patinet contact, and it'd be win win.
I employ more people, and enjoy my job more.

Don't think every penny coming into a system goes to 'fat cats'..

DrP

More staff is the answer.
The nurses I know are all looking to leave the NHS due to understaffing… a vicious circle

this. Over the past few years, I've been landed with a few extra jobs, nothing much just a thing here and there but they add up, and with no extra staff resources, nothing gets done as well as it should. We've also had key staff leaving and not being replaced for 3 months during which time the workload is moved on to someone else who gets stressed overworked. Clinical staff retiring now sy they would not recommend the NHS as a career, and as much as I have a job I enjoy, I'm not sure I would. And none of this is to do with wages.

His pay is ludicrously low and it will never change

"with additional on-call and private work work available."

On-call is not like overtime: it's not "available", it is mandatory. I get paid £43 a night for being on call. I would happily give up the £43 to not have to do it but I do not have a choice. GPs [i]were[/i] given a choice a few years ago and weirdly, guess what happened?

Private work is available but you have to do it in addition to your actual job which means evenings and weekends. Fine unless you like your family. In any case it's not money for free and half of consultants therefore don't do it.

just5minutes - you seem to know your stuff. Perhaps I should have said opening it up 'more' to US firms. I'm pretty sure things are going to become more privatised/monetised in the near future under this government - more so than they would under another. No one on this planet will convince me that this government is a safe pair of hands for the NHS. Perhaps Labour is little better right now, but following the news, talking to staff and reading a variety of articles around the subject all leaves me utterly convinced that the Tories are bad for the nation's health.

I just remind the mussus; when people start dropping like flies and the dribble of new staff coming into her specialty dries up, the cap WILL comes off (salary and agency/contract) - go in hard and without mercy and have the b-std for as much as possible.

Nobody who controls the purse GAS about feeding new staff or allowing market forces and therefore, and most importantly, by proxy, the welfare of the patients, so hit the b-y b^std as hard as you can.

Looking at how interest is accrued on a student loan (nurses move from bursary > student loan), the [i]payments[/i] are income dependent, but the interest isn't.

If inflation takes off, it looks to me like it might be another sub-prime mortgage jolly.

SLC [url= http://www.slc.co.uk/services/interest-rates.aspx ]interest.[/url]

The page is splendidly ambiguous how the RPI is fixed - i.e. it defines the setting of the RPI figure under the "Postgraduate Loans" section, so it safe to assume that only applies to Postgrad loans and other loans will track the monthly RPI. Or perhaps not.

In the private sector if you're short of staff you can offer new interviewees 20pc more and recruit new staff fast without increasing your existing staff pay at all so the impact on your overall salary bill is negligable.

This does already happen in the NHS locally. There are so many shortages that Trusts are offering recruit and retain incentives, but only in roles where they know having an extra bum on the seat will equal additional income.

GPs/consultants are earning huge sums (2/3 final salary pensions on top) and the shortage is due to being able to retire a wealthy lifestyle at a young age and/or earn on the side privately.

What do you call a huge sum? Consultant pay starts at £75k and tops out at £120k it really isnt that much compared to what similar skilled/educated people earn in other industries.

I look forward to my wife retiring at a young age (68) and being able to go out on the private yacht and purchasing a new Bentley.

On a serious note though on the private bit. The training to be a consultant is ridiculous and so is the sacrifice you make. The government doesnt value you, so why not value yourself by making more money? (and any private work is done outside of NHS contracted time, if you choose to work 7 days a week, then surely thats up to the consultant)

having an extra bum on the seat will equal additional income.

I [i]think[/i] there are penalties for not meeting certain SLA's, too, but Mrs BVP7 has never indicated that staff retention policies have come into play, even when pretty hefty penalties were (apparently) being collected.

I found that utterly nuts.

having an extra bum on the seat will equal additional income.

Sorry may read incorrectly, I dont mean the CCG/government pays based on bums on seats, more that savvy Trusts can see that if they increase activity/maintain activity, spending £3k on a reward/rentention is worth it if it generates £50k more income.

I would say it but I don't think NHS consultant pay is unfair. I spent 15 years working 50-60 hours a week to become one and still work 45 hrs/wk and a 7 day week 1 week in 7.

We are well paid but we work hard both to get there and for the money when we do get there.

I think for some staff groups more pay would help but the problem is actually far more than pay - there are far more things that negatively impact morale than just pay in the NHS at the moment.

There does also need to be a sensible discussion about what to fund and not fund as everything isn't affordable.....

Short version, I don't think pay increases are really the answer but banging on about pay and cost and constantly banging heads with doctors could be designed to make them feel undervalued and demoralised. Meanwhile staff shortages caused by people leaving the profession and not enough training will drive wage costs up. At which point Jeremy Hunt and the papers will blame greedy doctors.

BaronVonP7 - Member

If inflation takes off, it looks to me like it might be another sub-prime mortgage jolly.

I don't know about medicine, but the 2010 increase in general tuition fees is likely to be completely wiped out by the fall in tuition fee repayments. The gap's been closing steadily, this years figures have been delayed (indefinitely, not sure we'll ever see them tbh if they're embarassing).

That's so counterintuitive that I'll rephrase it just to make it clearer- tuition fees increased to £9000, saddling many students with 25 years of debt, and then so much gets written off after the 25 year lifespan that they might as well have left the fees at £3300 because the total income is the same. But the writeoffs will be some other government's problem and in the meantime the loan book is treated as an asset.

That's all based on current earnings forecasts to be fair, which are quite likely going to be wrong by 2042. But that's the best we've got and the basis of the policy planning done today.

Pay rises are nice, but not the answer. To my
Mind the answer is spendIng more money ON the staff. I'm an nhs manager (who also works clinically in a different trust.) there is no money to support my team in training or development. If they pay for training or development to take place, then it is in their time as we have no money to cover gaps in Rotas. When opportunity to step up is there, there is no money or support to encourage that, it's just expected (my boss is leaving next week, the replacement arrives in about 3 months, I'm expected to do 2 jobs for that time period, I will not be offered any salary increase or training to manage these roles. I'd like to develop one of my team leaders to do more day to day management, but her pay band prevents that, and as she is at the top of her band there is no point training her. She will soon leave and we'll lose all her expertise and knowledge.

There is no flexibility in the service and staff are starting to get better offers, leading to the staffing crisis we now have. It's getting like a football team, if you're good, you leave, the new players take a while to develop and bond with the team, management changes every 6 months and we're only 3 and games away from relegation.

wl - not sure if I know my stuff but the thing Labour keep pushing very hard is to scare everyone about US Health Firms. What's not clear is if US firms actually have any interest in competing to provide a service to the NHS.

The likes of Kaiser actually oversee a health system that is more integrated and performs better than the NHS on many indices - but Kaiser don't seem to be active here and the fact some of the firms that might operate here could bring some models that improve outcomes and patient experience never gets a mention.

What Labour noticeably don't do is mention the many EU Companies involved in healthcare who could also operate in the UK but again don't.

I rather suspect that the idiosyncrasies of public sector procurement, the incredibly negative political rhetoric and significant cost of building any health business in the UK is more than enough to put most firms off - so the "USA Fear" tactics from Labour is simply a politically expedient way of obfuscating their lack of real policy or detailed answers to the key question:

[b]"[i]what is the real root cause of what's currently not working in the NHS and what is your proposed solution?"[/i][/b]

After giving this some thought, I have the think that this pledge by Labour to give NHS workers more money isn't to try to help the NHS, but to help to ensure it's 1.3m employees vote for Labour.

I don't understand this version of Labour, with everthing that's going on in the UK and the world at the moment they should be having a field day, but they're just not.

The likes of Kaiser

Bit more dismantling to be done before they come in, I imagine

GPs do not have Final Salary Pensions. The poster above got it wrong. We have a complex money-purchase scheme which reflects our earnings in every single year that we have worked. I might get near 50% of my average wearnings as salary, and I am not complaining. The inflationary uplift is quite good.

BUT - set against that, the Conservative Government's bizarre and counterproductive changes to Annual and Lifetime pension allowances are currently pushing almost any GP aged 55 or over out of the scheme or into reducing hours at a time when we have a national shortage of GPs which will absoultely kill the service.

So - for me - a bit of thought by the Treasury could have, at very little expense, by just leaving things the way they were, avoided an impending absolutely calamitous situation.

Six years of pay restraint have left the average public sector worker earning thousands of pounds less than they would have been if pay had kept up with inflation.

[img] [/img]

My simple solution would be to introduce more generous tax codes to the lower paid front line community workers, which include nurses, carers, social workers etc. I'd also include similar measures for police, fire, teachers etc.

Seems ridiculous that one government department, e.g. DoH, transfers numbers to another department, e.g. HMRC, when the numbers came from the Treasury in the first place. Unnecessary beauracracy, silly to impose a tax at all for these people. Could possibly help staff/skills retention too as the private sector would no longer be financially viable for the employees.

I have no figures, but could make some up if required 🙂

How has the same period impacted private sector workers? For context it's important to see what has happened to the rest of society

some skewing of the figures there, band 5 covers £28,462 to £21,909 depending on the pay point

you could easily have a £21,909 nurse and a £28,462 ambulance driver

the band 6 midwife could be as low as £26,302

Dirtyrider: good job there are percentages there then. Also bear in mind most people are at the top of certsinly closer to the top of their pay scale than the bottom: When I was one, i was at the top of band 5 for more years than I was at any of the other points in that scale combined. Same is true for 2/3 of my department who have maybe moved jobs sideways but stayed on same salary point (i.e. top of band) since Agenda for change came in 12/13 years ago.

There is a calculator on here if you want. https://www.rcn.org.uk/nursingcounts/calculate-lost-earnings

By that website, my theoretical 'lost earnings' over seven years do not take into account my increased pension payments and retirement age, but they are almost exactly the same my local MP's salary increase for a single year. Smooth.

There is no getting past the facts that 1) NHS staff are required year on year to do more with fewer staff. 2) the biggest cost component by far in healthcare is the wages of the staff- and the 'frontline' staff far outnumber the support/non-clinical/management staff.
What is harder to argue is productivity and clinical outcomes- I have a sense that because I am a person of principle and basically find things to do st work rather than avoid them, that I actually help children and families more when I have fewer of them and my actual "throughput" and 'relapse rate' are better when I am at a level slightly below "maximum busy" - I think that is very hard to reliably measure though our department audits do support this notion.
So personally I would quite like more colleagues again as much as I would like to have the same standard of living in 5 years as I do today.

@bunreep public sector employees aren't the only ones who have experienced real terms pay cuts.

That being said pay levels in the NHS are too low imo, far too low

Out health provision needs a major rethink, imo more taxes and better integration with and involvement of the private sector. Another true story ..

My wife went to the doctor with 2 different issues. First requires an ultra-sound, she got an [b]emergency/urgent[/b] refrerral. That appointment is in 4 weeks !!! Second requires an mri in her view (recurrence of old wakeboard injury), Dr in UKmprescribed strong painkillers and wait and see. As her father is ill we came back to Paris this weekend. Dr here will give her the ultra-sound in his surgey tomorrow (3 day wait) and for her neck she has an MRI tomorow (2 day wait) and some specialist (sports injury clinic) injections. Days not weeks, specialist treatments. Now this will not be free, her appointments have a modest cost over and above what her private medical covers.

I have an mri in a few weeks, both knees. Both need acl replacement surgery. I strongly suspect I'll be told (directly or indirectly) I am too old (54) and/or surgery isn't available. In that case I'll get it done privately in France where its much cheaper (as private works hand in hand with state instead of the UK "luxury tax" way), the surgeon there has already recommended it and says my age is nit a factor for him.

Our system is badly broken and getting worse. It is NOT a party political issue, its as bad under Tories as it was under Labour. We are not addressing the fundamental problem of health costs rising at 4% pa

There's no such thing as good housekeeping within the NHS. The price-gouging of drugs has been left unchecked with eye-watering amounts of money being paid. There seems to be nobody responsible for procurement.

Tough decisions need to be made, Lord Sugar is the person for the job!

[quote=Northwind ]tuition fees increased to £9000, saddling many students with 25 years of debt, and then so much gets written off after the 25 year lifespan that they might as well have left the fees at £3300 because the total income is the same. But the writeoffs will be some other government's problem and in the meantime the loan book is treated as an asset.

Wow - they manage to do the accounts like that from the creditor side? Because my understanding is that from the debtor's side the banks take into account the write off after 25 years, so it's treated as a payment/tax/deduction from income rather than a debt when taking on other loans.

As you say, if it's the same for nurses as other student loans, then it will be nothing like another sub-prime mortgage thing, whatever inflation does. Well I suppose there will be lots of "defaulting" on the debt, but that's going to happen anyway.

Any discussion about the NHS must start with:
- do we decide how much we, as a country, can afford and then decide how we allocate
OR
- determine what we want from the NHS; then cost it and adjust tax rates accordingly without affecting any other governmental expenditure.

Put simply, decide between what we want to pay (and accept the service which results) or what we need (and accept the costs) - without screwing any other planned gov spend.
Thirty year time horizon.
Time for grown up discussion by politicos - no party agenda; what is best for the residents of the uk.
No current or aspiring mp will support the inevitable cost - and tax - increases which result from funding the NHS to deliver what we need.
In summary, we're always in the shit it's just the depth that varies.

Time for grown up discussion by politicos - no party agenda;

This.

Reading this thread you would assume the NHS is a total disaster but to give a bit of balance here's my experience.

I fell off my bike before Christmas which led to a compound ankle fracture that was limb threatening as in loss of leg below the knee territory. This was a Saturday evening and a remote location. Mountain rescue recovery to ambulance and straight into A&E and into 8 hours of surgery to save the leg. Two further operations one lastly 16 hours to graft and plate up the ankle. 12 days in hospital and 30 plus appointments for wound dressing and physio to a point today when I can walk with a stick and can count 10 toes. I've still got a way to go but what I would say is the dedication and skill of the 100 plus people who helped me and still are is amazing.

My experience of the NHS is it might not be perfect day to day and you might not always be able to get an appointment with your GP but when you have a real need it is there and it is world class.

"My experience of the NHS is it might not be perfect day to day and you might not always be able to get an appointment with your GP but when you have a real need it is there and it is world class."

Agree. I've had two new kids and a major Op in the last five years. Every step of the way the NHS has been flawless.

I also saw an ENT consultant privately and the only difference I could see was free biscuits in the waiting room.

...but if health care inflation is at 20pc every five years, something needs to change fast to keep things sane in the future.

Those biscuits weren't "free" you paid for them, over the odds I'd imagine.

"Those biscuits weren't "free" you paid for them"

Good point.

I know what isnt the answer

some slimy cockwombe setting up a huge cancer drug fund, because he'd rather piss 1.3bn up the wall than tell the Daily Mail that NICE knows more about drug efficacy than the they do

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39711137 ]Cancer Drugs Fund 'huge waste of money'[/url]

another great legacy of Cameron

Surely the voters are to blame for that bit of lunacy?

More pay is part of the answer, not THE answer.

respecting the people who work their by not eroding their take home pay for 9 years in a row will certainly help prevent demotivation

More money into the NHS in total is the answer. More staff. better equipment, better pay, better facilities.

Having working in the NHS for 30+ years I have seen the difference increased funding makes and the damage decreased funding makes.

Private medicine in any form is not the answer. Its less efficient so you get less improvement for the extra money if it comes from private sources. Utter nonsense to suggest that the private sector involvement in European countries is a model we should follow. for a start most of the "private" involvement in european healthcare is actually charitable or religious non profit organisations

too many folk commenting on this thread have zero idea about the complexities and reality of running a health service

The elephant in the room is that we need to pay more taxes. significantly more. For example the Netherlands. You pay more income tax than you do here - and then you pay significant sums for healthcare on top of this. the UK is a low tax country

"More money into the NHS in total is the answer."

How much more? 4pc extra pa?

20% extra to bring us up to the european average.; Take ten years to do I guess as the money spent needs to be planned.

"More money into the NHS in total is the answer."

20pc over 10 years is a significant reduction in real terms.

So you actually want less money for the NHS.

Deliberate misrepresentation of what I said and meant. 20% increase over inflation.

I could solve the NHS problems easily and so could many NHS employees that understand the situation

Step 1 take control of the NHS out of politicians hands completely. Politicians set the total budget and broad aims and nothing else

Step 2 - pledge to increase funding to the european average over 10 years

Constant reorganisations waste huge sums of money and as importantly the energy and enthusiasm of the staff.

It's obvious he meant in real terms since he was talking about raising it to other nation's levels. But you know that.

frankconway - Member

No current or aspiring mp will support the inevitable cost - and tax - increases which result from funding the NHS to deliver what we need.

And yet it's the cheapest option. Increased privatisation will drive up costs. Continued underfunding will drive up long term costs (cheaper to maintain than rebuild). The cheapest option is to fund it properly, all the time, from top to bottom.

[quote=tjagain ]too many folk commenting on this thread have zero idea about the complexities and reality of running a health service

Much like the Secretary of State for Health then.

[quote=Northwind ]It's obvious he meant in real terms since he was talking about raising it to other nation's levels. But you know that.

I read it as an admission of being a trolling idiot.

"Deliberate misrepresentation of what I said and meant. 20% increase over inflation."

Appologies, wasn't deliberate.

So over 10 years, 20pc plus the 40pc required to keep up with health costs inflation?

60pc?

Step 1 take control of the NHS out of politicians hands completely. Politicians set the total budget and broad aims and nothing else

Could we do the same with education too?