The NHS…………..again. (P155 boiling content)

giving people a sense of worth will.

Money does that. I suppose you want to rely on the good nature of some people to do jobs like that for not much reward.

I’d still rather both politicians and the unions would concentrate more on the poor working practices (management and frontline) and poor service levels in the NHS

Private sector does better I suppose?

totalshell – Member

pay rises based on length of service are simply wrong.. if i m doing my job well and so is bill why should he get more than me simply because hes done the role longer..

If Bill has been doing the job for longer, he should be doing the job better. So his “doing the job well” should be better than yours.

Of course, it’s not a direct experience bonus- we all know people who’ve done a job for years and not really improved. But when you apply it to a larger group, it should hold. So essentially, it’s just a very simple way of applying a performance bonus, but based on the mean not the individual.

It’s not fair! Well, sure, lots of things aren’t fair. Performance bonuses generally aren’t, they’re arbitrary, sometimes open to bias, and almost none accurately reward an employee’s total contribution. So it’s not necessarily a net loss of fairness, but it’s a net gain of simpleness and efficiency.

Health workers and teachers should be paid well.

If Bill has been doing the job for longer, he should be doing the job better. So his “doing the job well” should be better than yours.

As it is, there’s precious little incentive for nurses on acute wards to stay at the coalface… and Hunt seems to be working hard to further disincentivise them.

The paradox being, of course, that good care is largely dependent upon having experienced staff – the classic being the kind of long-in-the-tooth band 5 RN who hasn’t chosen to go up the career ladder, but who has seen literally everything….. If/when I keel over, that’s who I want to be looking after me – and I won’t be begrudging ’em their incremental pay rises.

The incremental pay increases my lot get are based on their annual appraisals where competencies and well defined knowledge and skills frameworks are used. If the individual isn’t progressing and displaying the required competencies and ksf’s – no increment. Simples.

Private sector does better I suppose?

Not relevant, private sector goes bust if the company doesn’t perform (bankers excepted of course, but that’s a different thread). NHS gets it wrong and the tax payer has to stump up more, despite not getting good service.

Also money does not give people a sense of worth (wrong word probably) in the way I mean. Google Maslow’s hierarchy of need.

I’ve recently experienced the NHS in an elective surgery context, and excepting one individual, every single patient facing member of staff did an outstanding job, with kindness, compassion, a sense of humour and a smile on their face.
Considering the evidently difficult working conditions they are experiencing, I think that is frankly amazing.

Do deny them such a small pay rise is an insult, and I am disgusted that there are people that think it’s acceptable to do so.

Not relevant, private sector goes bust if the company doesn’t perform (bankers excepted of course, but that’s a different thread). NHS gets it wrong and the tax payer has to stump up more, despite not getting good service.

The global private sector has also historically **** people with pre-existing chronic conditions such as MS.

And don’t for a second think that you would get better doctors under private care, different insurance companies will send you to the same approved hospitals and those hospitals will gain those contracts by providing the cheapest deal to those insurance companies. So you can’t just take your business elsewhere like you would with a retail shop, you won’t be able to argue with your insurance company into sending you to some wonderful high tech ridiculously expensive hospital….you’ll have to change your insurance…none of whom may offer what you actually want. And good luck changing insurance plans when they ask why….”So you don’t like your current care. What kind of care were you unhappy with, with your previous provider? Oh I see from the details you provided that you’ve got brain cancer?….well….with all due respect…**** off”.

It’s not hair splitting it’s really important. If you want to improve moral in the NHS payrises won’t do it, giving people a sense of worth will.

If you are of poor morale because you dont get paid enough and you have not had a wage rise then a sense of worth is neither here nor there. if it can be changed it will only be from more money.
You do recall saying pay was a massive de motivator dont you?
A sense of self worth is no substitute for paying your bills – even Maslow agrees
FWIW You started off by replying my post
Are the right wing now seriously suggesting that money is not a motivating factor –

JY it’s generally accepted that pay isn’t a motivator, once a rise is given it rapidly becomes the norm. Pay however can be a massive demotivator.

you now seem to be arguing pay has nothing to do with “worth” which is not the same as it not being a motivating factor.Stop paying folk and see how many continue to work [just for self worth] if you think it does not motivate them.

Stop buying bike parts from Germany and put your cash into the British economy?

It’s a good point.

Nice to see 5thIdiot is back to posting crap. Moving round from employer to employer to increase your lot is standard practice in some industries. I’m doing my level best to find a better deal with another company as we speak. However as someone else has pointed out, I’d rather not see a load of experienced NHS staff leave for the lucrative private sector and be replaced with newly qualified doctors and nurses who, whilst unquestionably qualified to do the job, lack years of experience. My wife used to work at a school where when an experienced teacher left, the head tried to recruit a NQT for budgetary reasons. The pressure this puts on more senior teachers in unreal but, hey in a capitalist utopia this is good yes?

#edit Tom_W1987, I couldn’t agree more. very well put sir!

That’s a stupid comment, if you aren’t capable of doing the job (especially in a medical setting) you shouldn’t be doing the job unsupervised.

It is not a stupid comment, it is a realistic one based on real world & first hand experience, your comments come across as naieve to me.

[FACTOID.] Shit happens & when the shit hits the fan in acute, unexpected scenarios, then more times than not wide eyed newbies look frantically at experienced staff to lead the way, this is how the newbie gains their experience, reflects upon it and works better in the future, and becomes an experienced old hand. [/FACTOID.]

pebblesonabeach and colleagues – I hear you.
However, you sound like the real difference will be made when we somehow change society, especially those with a lack of citizenship.
I do see why 1% would send you a positive message, but on the next shift it will still be the same challenges.

Whilst there are many issues involved, I would like to think that those who choose to work in the frontline of healthcare provision, do so because they are compassionate, empathic and caring individuals, their prime motive to simply do their best for and by their patients, with the remuneration being a secondary, yet necessary factor. It is still no excuse.

It must be so disheartening then, given their raison d’etre, to constantly battle with so many other obstacles, apart from relatively low pay, that inhibit the level of care that is required or perceived as necessary by the healthcare professional.

Even more so, when as a society we are so hell bent on money, profit and greed as measures of worth, value and recognition. How have we allowed it to come to this? It’s tempting to roll out the often used examples of the value’s we place on sports professionals and estate agents at this point.

How about introducing either a zero or single digit tax point for our underpaid, overworked and utterly undervalued frontline healthcare professionals, as a start? It may even go a little way towards improving staff retention, although Im aware that the numerous other factors contributing to low morale and professional esteem also need to be challenged and resolved.

Around the world, there are a number of professions in high demand from the pool of 200 million international migrants.

The need for nurses and doctors is perhaps the best known

Seems that recruitment and retention is an issue, if we have to attract migrants from outside the EU….

with the remuneration being a secondary, yet necessary factor.

Um, no.

It’s a job, not a voluntary service, so pay us properly.

How about introducing either a zero or single digit tax point

Um, no.

Just pay us properly and tax us like everyone else.

I appreciate your support, but suggesting that wages are an extra reward on top of the amazing job satisfaction is nonsense, and suggesting that we should be taxed differently is also nonsense.

We provide a service for a pre-arranged salary, with nationally negotiated increases up to the top of a pay band. If you would like a decent healthcare system, you have to pay for it.

Healthcare is very much like teaching; everyone who has been to school thinks they know how to do it better, just like everyone who has had a headache thinks they know how to run the NHS.

I am a nurse with 15 years experience and I believe I do a bloody good job, am at the top of my band on £27,901 so I have already had all the incremental pay increases I can get; although I am currently acting up as a Band 6 to help out our unit which is short staffed. Seems to mean I still have the same caseload as before but have some extra duties as well to fit in.

I wish to remain a Band 5 because going above this grade invariably leads to more management and less patient contact, and helping people directly is why I want to do the job.

I don’t do it for the money but do need to keep my family housed and fed and watered the same as everyone else.

In my case, and many of my colleagues, it’s not about whether we get 1% or 2% or 3% or whatever. It’s about the disdain from those in authority and the way they justify cutting pay; the current message smacks of ‘ the nurses want to reduce patient care so they can get more cash’.

It’s about coming into work every week wondering what new tasks you are going to have to add on to the ones you currently do, and how you are going to fit them in.

It’s about phoning home again to cancel stuff cos you have to stay a bit longer than you are contracted for.

It’s about other changes to contracts which are also eating into your paypacket.

It’s about hearing in the press that you are overpaid and will have money falling out of your arse when you retire.

It’s about reading on here and elsewhere that you’re not valued because ‘you don’t contribute to the economy, you are just a cost’ and ‘we pay your wages’.

Maybe it’s time that the health system was privatised. I am good at what I do and am sure I could command a good price for my services.

Maybe as a healthcare professionals we should look towards treating our skills more as a marketable commodity.

Maybe we need a system where healthcare is provided dependent on what you can, or want to, pay.

Maybe you’ll need to ring round hospitals to find one which is willing to provide the treatment at what you want to pay.

Maybe people will die because all the doctors/nurses/physios they contact just don’t fancy selling them that particular procedure as it’s not that lucrative.

Me personally, I would just like to keep going to work, helping people to get better and doing the best I can for my patients without worrying where the next kick in the teeth is coming from.

Right who do I complain to? According to the CH4 news I am on £40k per year – who the hell has been stealing £11k per year from my pay packet???????

Drac – Moderator
It’s only going to get worse

100%. The government is committed to real spending cuts. The bulk of the hit is coming in numbers employed and in pay. The rest of the rights/wrongs stuff is interesting but largely irrelevant. Drac is correct – it will get worse.

So essentially we’re heading towards being a third world nation?

So essentially we’re heading towards being a third world nation?

Looking at the uncollected rubbish outside my house – Yes.

We are a third world nation: we just haven’t noticed yet. What I find most depressing about this week’s news is the extent to which supposedly intellegent people repeat the propaganda they are fed. Imagine it: actually being dumb enough to stand for being lectured by multi-millionaires, whose fortunes are made from speculation; telling you that your living standards are too high for their tastes, or that you’re not productive enough…

I appreciate your support, but suggesting that wages are an extra reward on top of the amazing job satisfaction is nonsense, and suggesting that we should be taxed differently is also nonsense.

Thank you. It wasn’t my intention to infer that wages are an added extra award, so I’m sorry you perceived my comment in that way. As for taxation, I do wonder why we spend lots of money transferring large amounts of money from one government department to another in the form of direct taxation. My suggestion was for an immediate 20% effective salary increase.

… If you would like a decent healthcare system, you have to pay for it.

I totally agree with you. Unfortunately, the essence of the NHS is its undoing in that the ‘free at the point of delivery’ system does little to help the public’s perceptions of cost, worth and value of the service. To convince people that they need to pay more for something perceived to be free and some sort of right ( and who are more than willing to blow £100’s on replica football shirts) is probably deemed to be political suicide by those who rely on the political gravy train. Furthermore and recognising we are in the real world, the continual mis-management of resources by layers of bureaucracy, managed by people promoted to levels of incompetence probably doesn’t help either. The system needs to adapt and change, otherwise it will continue to struggle and be used a political pawn.

Healthcare is very much like teaching; everyone who has been to school thinks they know how to do it better, just like everyone who has had a headache thinks they know how to run the NHS.

Maybe, maybe not. A poisoned chalice. In an ideal world it needs to be patient centric, so if that means everyone with a headache can have a go 😉

My corner of the public sector (and my wife’s) hasn’t had a pay rise for 4 years. A load of (near) colleagues discovered two weeks ago that their jobs were being downgraded and that some of them were now so far over the grade maximum they would be retired before they could see a pay rise.

Feel free to tell me how cushy it is in the public sector and then explain why you aren’t rushing to come and join me in this land of milk and honey…..

Unfortunately, the essence of the NHS is its undoing in that the ‘free at the point of delivery’ system does little to help the public’s perceptions of cost, worth and value of the service. To convince people that they need to pay more for something perceived to be free and some sort of right is Probably deemed to be political suicide by those who rely on the political gravy train. Furthermore and recognising we are in the real world, the continual mis-management of resources by layers of bureaucracy, managed by people promoted to levels of incompetence probably doesn’t help either. The system needs to adapt and change, otherwise it will continue to struggle and be used a political pawn

Yes, yes and yes again!

The biggest problem the NHS has to deal with is the way that each successive government attempts to impose their own ideology on it, and therefore decides to alter it in the way that suits. We would be much better off if they would all jeff off and leave it alone for a while.

The issue at the moment is that the NHS is seen as a cost to the economy rather than an asset to be invested in. Because it is seen as a cost, the current government are attempting to reduce said cost, instead of thinking about how to increase the quality of care we can offer.

To coin a Terry Pratchettism, the NHS is like opera; you don’t make money on opera/the NHS, opera/the NHS is what you spend money on…

We are a third world nation

have you seen the third world? we are literally worlds apart from their levels of poverty and deprivation. What we have here is a problem largely with our priorities rather than our wallets.
THM is correct it will get worse under the Tories for the public sector.
It may not be that much better under labour but at least the rhetoric would be nicer.
Suggesting the pay rise is a risk to patients and the workers are threatening care/patients with their request whilst spending £3 billion on a restructure is pretty distasteful tbh.
They love to vilify the people they aim to lead and whom they wish to persuade which is an interesting management technique.

slackalice – Member
Unfortunately, the essence of the NHS is its undoing in that the ‘free at the point of delivery’ system does little to help the public’s perceptions of cost, worth and value of the service

V true

In the news this week, we have a report of an ambulance crashing after loosing its rear wheels,with patients inside another set of ambulances having their engines changed at a cost of many thousands, as theyve failed, still fallout from the idiots allowed to run staffordshire hospital, 30 people died at ysbyty glan clwyd due to c diff and the local AM asking repeatedly for a police investigation,along with a Gp complaining about 11 ambulances waiting outside an emergency dept, due to lack of beds inside, and finally a coroner demanding the head of an ambulance service attends a coroners court, to state why an ambulance wasnt dispatched to a chap who died of a heart attack, lack of resourses being blamed.

But one thing is for sure all those responsible have resigned,or will do on good severence terms,not been sacked or had their pensions taken off them for being incompetence, while the workers are now refused a miniscule pay rise for fighting against all the shit hitting the fan those allowed to happen.

Sadly the NHS is doomed to failure, due to the failure of management to actually manage, and even worse the customer,/patients failure to complain.

and the person to complain to is david camerooon ,

Junkyard – lazarus
It may not be that much better under labour but at least the rhetoric would be nicer.

You can coat sh1t in sugar but it is still…..

One final thing to consider, in amongst all the bluster, all the feather bedding, all the rhetoric, all the ideological nonsense; the Francis Report on Mid Staffs came out in February.

8 months ago.

The recommendations have been in the public domain for 8 months.

Can anyone tell me if any of those recommendations have been acted on?

ohnohesback – Member

We are a third world nation:

I’m going to need a new scale, you just broke the old one.

Mid staffs was just the start, lots of failing management out there, and probably boxes full of complaints,all unanswered or un answerable

thm you can say shit you know its the avoidance they dislike so just type out swear words – I got a ban for it once but they have relaxed on this of late.

Indeed it may not be any better but they would not be saying what the Tories are saying about the health workers and attacking them. This might make it easier to manage the change. Which strategy would you recommend from a manager/CEO / minister of UK PlC as you call us?
Even if you accept it needs to be done it is still not being managed well
PS everyone knows a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down 😉

I got in trouble for telling a “manager of change” (sic) that they were screwing up the NHS when at B School in the early 90s. (I didn’t sugar coat the comments at the time 😉 ). Nothing has changed since then IMO. I find it hard to think of a culture or environment that I would like to work in less. Hats off to those who can – you must be made of stronger stuff.

Why do we, the populous, put up with the untruth’s and broken promises from any of the politicians? I remember very clearly before the last general farce of an election, that frontline healthcare workers would not be affected in any of the spending cuts deemed to be needed during the next term of government if elected. Or was I living too much in my world and not reading the associated small print?

There is one thing they are doing with great success and very competently… They are maintaining their control and power through the creation of fear. It apparently makes the very significant masses (who far outnumber those in governments) think that they/we need them to keep us safe, in an honest congruent altruistic way.

Something needs to be done and I would like the ‘turkeys for Xmas’ voting option of:

None of the Above

The problem is, in reality, Hunt is right. Removing our increments and pay rises will save jobs. It’s shit, but it’s true. Each trust has its own budget which is negotiated with its commissioners. The amount of money the commissioners has to spend will go down in real terms each year for the foreseeable future, meaning trusts get less. If your workforce is over 80% of your cost base, as it is in mental health, then the only way to break even is to make staff redundant and make the remaining staff work differently, including higher caseloads. If you take the circa 3% annual pay inflation out of the equation you have to get rid of fewer staff. As I say, it’s shit, but it’s true. Doesn’t make it right though, and it absolutely boils my wee to hear Cameron claiming he’s giving the NHS more money. Deceitful bastard.

Removing our increments and pay rises will save jobs

we can all do maths cutting your pay in half will save jobs.
as i mentioned it is about priorities and the public sector is not amongst theirs [ except for new and novel ways to cut costs that harm the workers and the poor and pave the way for rescue from the wonderful private sector that finds them]

Cutting payrises will save jobs, and not paying useless managers who shouldnt ever be in a job would save even more money, but by some strange quirk of fate, theyre the ones who decide the budgets for wages and theyre the ones most able to protect their jobs along with the hangers on below them.

ohnohesback – Member

What I find most depressing about this week’s news is the extent to which supposedly intellegent people repeat the propaganda they are fed. Imagine it: actually being dumb enough to stand for being lectured by multi-millionaires, whose fortunes are made from speculation; telling you that your living standards are too high for their tastes, or that you’re not productive enough…

Nicely put.

It should be pointed out that this is only a problem for those over the border.

Boom, tish