1% NHS ???

[Bill]

I didn’t take much notice of the budget the other day but listening to a brief summary it’s basically what I expected. The whole country knows that the government has borrowed heavily to support people through these times, so nobody would have been surprised to see tight measures applied right across the board. That being the case, why the heck did they propose a 1% pay increase for the NHS?

We all know the NHS people have worked hard and done a fantastic job but singling them out for a 1% pay rise implies that it’s all the government think they’re worth and understandably many see it as an insult. In my opinion, they would have done better to not award anything extra at this time.

 

Bill 😊

[asperity]

I totally agree Bill. If a 10% increase was proposed we would still have the usual suspects criticising the "Scrooge Tories" along with accusations of them trying to sell the NHS to the highest bidder (are Creepy Joe and Hyena Harris interested in a second hand health system I wonder?)

[Observer II]

It's the Gov's way of clapping them at 8pm.   😷

[asperity]

The NHS is still advertising for diversity support officers on £50,000+. If there's so much money available in the organisation why don't they stop creating non-jobs and use it to pay the actual workers?

[Davy51]

I think the census questions must have been posed with diversity in mind ,Asp .

[Observer II]

Perhaps HMG could invest to save; by creating an anti-woke inspectorate; that would trawl the public sector to identify and eradicate these PC jobs, and sack those responsible for creating them in the first place ?   😠

[Evil Sid]

Who would run the country in that case obs. Every politician would be sacked.

Still by capping the nhs pay rise to 1% they have ensured there will be enough in the coffers for their  own annual 29% pay rise.....😵

[asperity]

The politicians don't want a pay rise, but they are forced to take one by the "independent" body that sets their salaries. Such a shame, but what is one to do?

[Bill]

Well this has gone a bit pear shaped with the threat of strike action now being talked about. I wonder if as many would have gone out to clap for the nurses if they thought that in less than a year they’d be threatening to go on strike over money, or that a high percentage of them would actually refuse the vaccine that prevents the virus spreading to others?

It would have been far better to either offer nothing in view of the dire financial situation or to just give them some kind of thankyou bonus.

 

Bill 😊

[Observer II]

It might help if they took all the emotion out of this, and concentrated a bonus payment specifically on those staff involved directly in the line of fire of covid; such as the ICU and Covid ward staff, ambulance staff etc.  Ignoring of course all the non-clinical add-ons, such as diversity development officers, and of course GPs.    😷

[asperity]

I'd agree with that Obs.

[asperity]

If the 1% pay offer is an insult, the government should withdraw the offer and apologise for being so insensitive 🙄.

[Gary]

This is the problem when you operate a one cap fits all policy. I am sure there are many in the NHS (and elsewhere) who deserve bigger pay rises and 1pc does look insulting.

May be if they had a sliding scale offering 5pc to those earning under 30K a year to zero to those earning more than 100k - who also earn twice as much working privately as well.

I am earning less now than I was 10 years ago and the only pay rises we have been able to provide are in line with the living wage.

This is down to the fact we are working in the real world where everything has had to be cut to the bone to survive.

Even with bounce back loans and furlough I have been forced to make some tough decisions and implement redundancies which is the last thing I wanted to do. But again this is the real world. The changes I have made will hopefully secure the future of the business which until the past 12 months had traded successfully without every having a loan or even and over draft.

 

[Bill]

I think I’d be tempted to withdraw the offer completely until such times as we have a clearer view of what the future holds. As Gary points out, it’s not just the NHS that have been hit by this but we’re not out of it yet and it’d be wiser to wait and see how things go before starting to award pay rises to anyone.

 

Bill 😊

 

[asperity]

A sensible suggestion Gary. However something I don't understand is that the NHS has a huge number of managers (many of whom have no doubt been sat at home on full pay for the last 12 months), so why aren't they managing the salary structure in the organisation? I'm sure that the doctors and nurses dealing with the ICU and other "front line" positions have been working their socks off dealing with the pandemic, but what about the large numbers who haven't been working at all because non-covid related illness is being, seemingly, put on the back burner for now? Perhaps it's too convenient to use the staff actually doing work as a spearhead to hold the country to ransom and get an across the board pay increase deserved by some but not all? Blame the government and not the management? Meanwhile the adverts for Diversity and Inclusion Managers , Outreach Workers (wot's they?) Art Consultants, and other positions you wouldn't normally associate with health, continue to be posted.

Anyway as and when the economy opens up again, should all the dissatisfied Doctors and nurses decide to leave the NHS, best of luck to them finding jobs in a marketplace full of jobseekers, especially ones that have the benefits enjoyed by the ones they have deserted.

[Observer II]

A flat rate bonus to all those at the front line, beats a hand clap any day.    😷