NHS.

[martinshrew]

Dec 7, 2022 12:04:42 GMT 1 staffordshrew said:

Dec 7, 2022 11:50:58 GMT 1 martinshrew said:

4.75% is around the figure the vast majority or private sector employees are getting.

Have these private sector employees been getting less than inflation pay rises on a regular basis?

Have these private sector employees got colleagues in Scotland who have been offered 7.5%?

Yes on the first, likely no on the second.

Then again, 7.5% is a reasonable demand, 19% is ludicrous.

[martinshrew]

I can only speak on personal experience, but I know a lot of friends across different sectors have been averaging 0-3% for years and I don't know anyone who has got more than 6% this year.

[northwestman]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/07/28-years-leaving-nhs-patients-cost-cutting-bureaucracy

A salutary tale from a clinical psychologist leaving the NHS after 28 years.

"Just recently the health secretary, Steve Barclay, promised more transparency. But any time a politician promises more transparency they are promising that they are going to spend NHS money, which could be going on nurses and doctors, ambulance crews and medication, on an administrator to sit at a computer inputting data all day. An administrator whose wage could be spent on one more nurse to meet that ambulance with the pensioner who has fallen over.

I could go on for hours on more, from poor recruitment systems to endless “essential” training”. But perhaps worst of all is NHS England’s pointless internal market, where again, thousands of staff are employed so that one part of the system can pay another part of the system. It is as if Tesco were buying the food from the farmers, and then selling it to their own stores.

The relentless scrutiny, the lack of practical support, working systems, and the negative rhetoric, that is what gets us. That is why we end up exhausted, strung out, and making a choice between the NHS and our mental health. And so that is why I am part of the NHS brain drain".

[northwestman]

And now Steve Barclay indulges in blackmail.

"And the £9bn cost this (pay increase) would entail would impact other important areas of spend, such as buildings and technology, which are also important to staff.”

In other words, pay increase = increased waiting lists.

[martinshrew]

Dec 7, 2022 12:41:27 GMT 1 northwestman said:

And now Steve Barclay indulges in blackmail.

"And the £9bn cost this (pay increase) would entail would impact other important areas of spend, such as buildings and technology, which are also important to staff.”

In other words, pay increase = increased waiting lists.

What would you do, and how would you fund it?

[staffordshrew]

Dec 7, 2022 12:15:27 GMT 1 martinshrew said:

Dec 7, 2022 12:04:42 GMT 1 staffordshrew said:

Have these private sector employees been getting less than inflation pay rises on a regular basis?

Have these private sector employees got colleagues in Scotland who have been offered 7.5%?

Yes on the first, likely no on the second.

Then again, 7.5% is a reasonable demand, 19% is ludicrous.

The opposition Secretary of state said the same as you, without committing to 7.5% of course, that's what negotiations are for.  Steve Barclay, the Secretary of state, refuses negotiations.

[staffordshrew]

Dec 7, 2022 12:58:02 GMT 1 martinshrew said:

Dec 7, 2022 12:41:27 GMT 1 northwestman said:

And now Steve Barclay indulges in blackmail.

"And the £9bn cost this (pay increase) would entail would impact other important areas of spend, such as buildings and technology, which are also important to staff.”

In other words, pay increase = increased waiting lists.

What would you do, and how would you fund it?

By real negotiations.  To get 7.5%, I'd be looking for flexibility in shift take up to aim to reduce agency staff usage. 

I'd also be wanting to have wage levels in place that attracted some of those signed up to agencies back as well as some of those who have left for early retirement or other jobs, again to reduce use of agency staff.

[Deleted]

Dec 7, 2022 12:16:45 GMT 1 martinshrew said:

I can only speak on personal experience, but I know a lot of friends across different sectors have been averaging 0-3% for years and I don't know anyone who has got more than 6% this year.

I work in the private sector and have yet to have a below inflation pay rise in my current job, which I've been in for 6 years. Decent employers value their staff. At the beginning of the year everyone here got a 50p an hour pay hike and then a 5.5% pay rise in April. I don't expect 12% in April next year, but I don't think we'll be too far away. If my employer can do it, there's no reason why others can't.

[staffordshrew]

A decent pay rise in the NHS, or we could just clap for carers again, I'm sure they would all appreciate that....

[northwestman]

The government has not “run out of money”. It could fund more generous public sector pay deals out of higher taxes; or it could cut public services, in other words paying workers more generously but employing fewer of them. It doesn’t want to do either of these because Tory MPs are ideologically ill-disposed to higher taxes and might not support them. And explicit cuts to already embattled public services would be politically unpopular.

It is not strictly true either that more generous public sector pay would fuel inflation. If this were funded by higher taxes, demand in the economy would be no higher. Even if the government chose to fund public sector pay increases out of borrowing, which it could do, albeit only temporarily, the Bank of England would respond with higher interest rates to choke off higher inflation. Moreover, if an inflationary impulse were tolerated it would not necessarily impoverish us, because money wages tend to keep up with inflation when responding to events like this.

The correct and honest way to think about public sector pay if you are in government is to start from the amount and quality of public services you want – or have promised – to deliver. That plan in turn is going to be bound up with what taxes you think you can defend and the economy can sustain. You then pay what the labour market requires you to pay to recruit and retain the workers you need to run those public services.

The government no doubt hopes it can either squeeze public sector workers, getting the same services for less, degrade services in a less visible way, and profit from the conflict caused by trying to, or some combination of all three.

This strategy, dubious even on political grounds, is economically short-sighted. One consequence of the NHS crisis seems to be a large fall in labour supply due to ill health, probably caused by a combination of long Covid and conditions normally treated promptly being aggravated by long waiting lists. A record 2.5 million people say they are out of work due to long-term sickness now. Addressing this problem – meaning at a minimum paying wages adequate to fill vacancies and reduce turnover – could well more than pay for itself in terms of increased labour supply and the resulting tax revenues, aside from helping to alleviate a lot of suffering.

New Statesman.

[staffordshrew]

When you have to get agency workers in, when good people are leaving, when you find it difficut to attract new good people and have to keep training up new people, that's the time to negotiate, something that the government is shunning.  Unions might be demanding up to 19%, but I bet most workers would settle for 7.5% and a feeling they were valued.

[Deleted]

Dec 7, 2022 23:12:17 GMT 1 staffordshrew said:

When you have to get agency workers in, when good people are leaving, when you find it difficut to attract new good people and have to keep training up new people, that's the time to negotiate, something that the government is shunning.  Unions might be demanding up to 19%, but I bet most workers would settle for 7.5% and a feeling they were valued.

The problem then occurs next year, when inflation is forecast to still be around 8%. What is the government offer going to be then? 2 or 3%? Accepting less than inflation this year is going to reduce peoples disposable income for every subsequent year. For every £100 that a nurse or HCA earns 7.5% will push that up to £107.50 at the same time as the bills of £100 are going up to £112. Let's not forget that the tax free allowance has not increased for a couple of years, so any increase is effectively taxed at a higher rate and will be until at least 2028.

There have been 10 of the last 12 years in which the NHS and other public sector workers have received below inflation pay rises, effectively taking money out their pockets. There are currently around 40,000 civil servants claiming in work benefits, that's on top of all the NHS staff, care staff, etc that are using food banks and/or claiming those same in work benefits.

Why the bloody hell should they accept less than inflation? They have been doing so for the last 12 years, seeing their jobs being constantly undervalued, their disposable incomes drop, their colleagues leave to go into agency nursing to make ends meet or leave the profession altogether and all the time their workload increase due to those positions not being fully staffed, but hey at least we all stood on our f**king doorsteps and applauded every Thursday for about two months until we all got bored with the tosspots down the street banging saucepans because they f**kin' cared more than the rest of us and needed to show it.

No, they bloody well should not accept 7.5%, they should hold out until the government give them what they deserve with the guarantee to at least match inflation in any future pay rises. If they can triple lock the state pension they can damn well do the same to the wages of the people that are out there saving lives on a daily, even hourly basis.

[stuttgartershrew]

From the Telegraph and therefore behind a paywall...

How the NHS’s aversion to the private sector has left millions stuck on waiting lists

Its a fairly long article and so just some snippets (although more than happy to include the full article if anyone is interested)...

Millions of patients are stuck on waiting lists because the NHS has failed to use spare capacity in private hospitals, analysis has shown.

...experts warned that NHS resistance to use of the private sector means patients have been forced to wait far longer than necessary.

In total, about 3.5 million appointments in England could have been dealt with sooner had the private sector been fully deployed, analysis has shown.

Experts said that in fact, private hospitals had still more unused capacity - and could have been dealing with around a third more cases than was the case even before activity slumped (during the pandemic).

In total, the figures suggested that about 3.5 million cases could have been dealt with had the private sector been fully deployed since lockdown, The Telegraph analysis of NHS Digital data showed.

David Hare, chief executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, which represents private hospitals, has urged the NHS and the Government to make more use of such facilities.

He said the NHS has too often felt “threatened” by private sector involvement, while the Tories have feared being accused of attempts at privatisation.

“The private sector struggles to engage with its NHS counterparts, and there's perhaps an ‘NHS first’ mentality,” he said.

Even during the pandemic, the private sector often found it “very difficult” to persuade the NHS to hand its patients over, he said.

“We occasionally hear unhelpful language like, you know, a pound spent outside the NHS is a pound loss to the NHS. But it isn't, it's a pound spent on treating NHS patients,” he said.

Mr Hare suggested that recent governments have been less gung-ho than New Labour was in making use of the sector to cut waits in the 2000s.

“The Labour government was unapologetic in saying that there's nothing about using the private sector that threatens the founding principles of the NHS, namely funded through general taxation, free at the point of use, and really facing down critics.

“I think it can be more difficult for the Conservatives to do that … but I think we urgently need to get past this sense that using the private sector equates somehow to privatisation,” he said.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said on Wednesday: “The Government has today established an Elective Recovery Taskforce to turbo-charge our current plans to bust the backlog and help patients get the treatment they need.

“Experts will focus on how the NHS can utilise existing capacity in the independent sector to cut the backlog, while ensuring the NHS always remains free at the point of use.

“The independent sector has been used to bolster NHS capacity and ease pressure at critical times for nearly two decades, delivering over 450,000 appointments in October alone, approximately six per cent of NHS care.”

I do think Hare makes a fair point. The government (whoever that may be) needs to start using whatever capacity is available and it needs to ignore the critics when it comes to using the private sector.

[northwestman]

Record 7.2m people now waiting for hospital treatment, NHS England says:

The number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has risen to a new record high, PA Media reports. PA says:

An estimated 7.2 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of October, NHS England said.

This is up from 7.1 million in September and is the highest number since records began in August 2007.

410,000 people in England waiting more than year to start hospital treatment, figures show.
And here is more data from the latest NHS England performance figures.

An estimated 410,983 people in England had been waiting more than 52 weeks to start hospital treatment at the end of October, PA Media reports. PA says:
This is up from 404,851 at the end of September, and is the equivalent of around one in 18 people on the entire waiting list.

The government and NHS England have set the ambition of eliminating all waits of more than a year by March 2025.

Some 1,907 people in England are estimated to have been waiting more than two years to start routine hospital treatment at the end of October, PA Media reports. PA says:
This is down slightly from 2,239 at the end of September and is well below the peak of 23,778 in January 2022.

The government and NHS England set the ambition to eliminate all waits of more than two years, except when it is the patient’s choice or for complex cases requiring specialist treatment, by July this year.

The number of people waiting more than 12 hours in A&E departments in England from a decision to admit to actually being admitted has fallen, PA Media reports. PA says:
New NHS England data shows that 37,837 people waited longer than 12 hours in November, down 14% from the record 43,792 in October but still the second-highest monthly total in data going back to August 2010.

The number waiting at least four hours from the decision to admit to admission also dropped from a record 150,922 in October to 143,949 in November, again the second-highest on record.

A total of 68.9% of patients in England were seen within four hours in A&Es last month, down from 69.3% in October and the worst performance on record, PA Media reports. PA says:
The operational standard is that at least 95% of patients attending A&E should be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours, but this has not been met nationally since 2015.

The average response time in November for ambulances in England outside London dealing with the most urgent incidents, defined as calls from people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries, was nine minutes and 26 seconds, PA Media reports. PA says:
This is down from nine minutes and 56 seconds in October.

The target standard response time for urgent incidents is seven minutes.
Data for London is not available.

Ambulances in England outside London took an average of 48 minutes and eight seconds in November to respond to emergency calls such as burns, epilepsy and strokes, PA Media reports. PA says:
This is down from an average of one hour, one minute and 19 seconds in October, but still well above the target of 18 minutes.

Response times for urgent calls, such as late stages of labour, non-severe burns and diabetes, averaged two hours, 43 minutes and five seconds, down from three hours, 34 minutes and 34 seconds.

Data for London is not available.

[staffordshrew]

The governent might be setting targets, but it's the staff who might achieve them, so let's have some meaningful negotitations on pay and conditions.

[northwestman]

I'll bet the Government regrets setting up this report. It says what we all know to be the case.

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/12/decade-of-neglect-means-nhs-unable-to-tackle-care-backlog-report-says

A “decade of neglect” by successive Conservative administrations has weakened the NHS to the point that it will not be able to tackle the 7 million-strong backlog of care, a government-commissioned report has concluded.

The paper by the King’s Fund health think tank says years of denying funding to the health service and failing to address its growing workforce crisis have left it with too few staff, too little equipment and too many outdated buildings to perform the amount of surgery needed.

The UK’s poor public finances, health service staff suffering from exhaustion, and a wave of NHS strikes this winter will also lead to ministers being unable to deliver key pledges on eradicating routinely long waits, the think tank says.

The findings are especially embarrassing for the Conservatives because the report was ordered by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) late last year. They are critical of the impact on the NHS of the austerity programme initiated by David Cameron in 2010 and continued by his successor, Theresa May.

[Deleted]

Dec 12, 2022 21:57:17 GMT 1 northwestman said:

I'll bet the Government regrets setting up this report. It says what we all know to be the case.

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/12/decade-of-neglect-means-nhs-unable-to-tackle-care-backlog-report-says

A “decade of neglect” by successive Conservative administrations has weakened the NHS to the point that it will not be able to tackle the 7 million-strong backlog of care, a government-commissioned report has concluded.

The paper by the King’s Fund health think tank says years of denying funding to the health service and failing to address its growing workforce crisis have left it with too few staff, too little equipment and too many outdated buildings to perform the amount of surgery needed.

The UK’s poor public finances, health service staff suffering from exhaustion, and a wave of NHS strikes this winter will also lead to ministers being unable to deliver key pledges on eradicating routinely long waits, the think tank says.

The findings are especially embarrassing for the Conservatives because the report was ordered by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) late last year. They are critical of the impact on the NHS of the austerity programme initiated by David Cameron in 2010 and continued by his successor, Theresa May.

Is anyone surprised?

Other countries have had a certain amount of austerity, but the idealistic and frankly reckless way the Tories have taken it to new levels has put the UK in a terrible position.

Cutting your way to growth doesn't work and I think that finally the country is beginning to see this. It could potentially take decades to put right the damage of the last 12 years.

[davycrockett]

Met up with a friend yesterday who partners an anaesthetist at RSH and his advice is now isn’t the time to get ill 

Surely the tories can’t keep their head in the sand any longer. A bit like the ambulance queues ‘we’re working on it’ but not improving the situation. They need to urgently formulate a plan with everyone on board and can’t do that with relationships as they are. This is a national emergency and should be treated like Covid with a task force made up of health experts and politician’s working on a short term fix and long term plan. Who’s idea was it to privatise the Health Service?

www.yournhsneedsyou.com/timeline/

[kenwood]

Dec 7, 2022 16:07:03 GMT 1 staffordshrew said:

A decent pay rise in the NHS, or we could just clap for carers again, I'm sure they would all appreciate that....

You forgot to mention a very nice badge which nhs staff could proudly wear ! 

I see that Barclay has met with the nurses union and has dug his heels in. The union wanted to enter negotiations, that is sit around a table and have a discussion as is the norm.
According to the union Barclay refused to move from the % increase suggested by the pay review board and therefore , after half an hour the “ negotiations “ closed. 
The man’s an arse .
Certainly austerity measures have played a part in our present predicament. As Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2012-2018 Jeremy Hunt didn’t exactly cover himself in glory , during his tenure junior doctors undertook multiple strikes , the first such action for 40 years.
Here he is now as Chancellor under Sunak’s government who himself is facing pressure after the Mone revelations. That’s not all as Priti Patel is gathering support as she opposes the government on a number of issues.
Brilliant, we are in the s**te and our government is in an internal battle with ex cabinet colleagues .
This isn’t going to end well is it .
We haven’t even started on the impositions of Brexit .

[northwestman]

Dec 13, 2022 11:15:53 GMT 1 kenwood said:

Dec 7, 2022 16:07:03 GMT 1 staffordshrew said:

A decent pay rise in the NHS, or we could just clap for carers again, I'm sure they would all appreciate that....

You forgot to mention a very nice badge which nhs staff could proudly wear ! 

I see that Barclay has met with the nurses union and has dug his heels in. The union wanted to enter negotiations, that is sit around a table and have a discussion as is the norm.
According to the union Barclay refused to move from the % increase suggested by the pay review board and therefore , after half an hour the “ negotiations “ closed. 
The man’s an arse .
Certainly austerity measures have played a part in our present predicament. As Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2012-2018 Jeremy Hunt didn’t exactly cover himself in glory , during his tenure junior doctors undertook multiple strikes , the first such action for 40 years.
Here he is now as Chancellor under Sunak’s government who himself is facing pressure after the Mone revelations. That’s not all as Priti Patel is gathering support as she opposes the government on a number of issues.
Brilliant, we are in the s**te and our government is in an internal battle with ex cabinet colleagues .
This isn’t going to end well is it .
We haven’t even started on the impositions of Brexit .

Not only Barclay. Shapps and Harper are playing a similar game.

www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/mick-lynch-blames-grant-shapps-train-strikes-b2244108.html

As the latest national rail strike began, the boss of the main union involved has blamed the former transport secretary, Grant Shapps, for blocking a settlement to the six-month dispute.

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT union, told The Independent: “I think Grant Shapps has still got his hand in it, because they [the cabinet] do a ‘round robin’ about proposals.

“He’s going to be leading the new wave of anti-trade union laws. So I think there are people intervening, and vetoing the Department for Transport’s stand.

“I told the minister, the secretary of state, that he’s not got the authority of an independent department.

“Other people are telling him what to do and other people are telling him what to write down in the proposals. And that’s where the blockage is.

On BBC Today, the current transport secretary, Mark Harper, repeatedly refused to say whether he insisted on driver-only operation being introduced at the last moment to the Rail Delivery Group proposal.

[martinshrew]

I think people have a lot more sympathy with NHS staff because respect of NHS staff is ingrained in the country.

I think patience is very much running out with Dick Lynch and the like who are totally refusing to modernise and change. We're running an 80s railway in Britain compared to the rest of mainland Europe, and far, far more expensive to boot.

[northwestman]

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/13/man-broken-hip-hospital-strapped-plank-wales-melvyn-ryan-ambulances

The family of an 89-year-old man with a broken hip and shoulder and a cut head who they had to take to hospital strapped to a plank in the back of a van because there were no ambulances have said he could have died had they not found a makeshift way of getting him to safety.

Melvyn Ryan’s granddaughter, Nicole Lea, found him lying on the floor of his home in Cwmbran, south Wales, in the early hours but when she dialled 999 a call handler told her no ambulances were available and advised her to book a taxi before ringing off.

“I couldn’t really believe what I was being told,” said Lea, a 27-year-old firefighter and Ryan’s main carer since his wife, Maureen, died of Covid in 2020.

“I was expecting a long wait for paramedics but never thought I’d literally be told, ‘We have nothing to send, you’ll have to find alternative transport’. I was left with grandad on the floor in agony and me wondering how I was going to save his life.

“I ended up, with my partner and mum’s help, getting him on to a plank of wood and into the back of the van we bought to transport our dogs.

“To make matters worse, when we did get him to hospital the staff told me that had we followed the advice we’d been given over the phone, he could’ve died. They told us that had we sat him up in a taxi the break in his hip would’ve likely ruptured an artery and been catastrophic.”

And yet this is being considered by the Government! :-

Taxis could be used as makeshift ambulances during strikes by paramedics, under plans being considered by ministers.

The Government is looking at proposals on "block-booking" taxis to take patients who have called 999 to hospital when ambulance workers strike on Dec 21.

Will Quince, a health minister, said that taxis could be offered to lower risk patients - known as category three and four - which often include elderly patients who have suffered a fall.

Daily Telegraph.

[martinshrew]

The thing I've always been confused at with A&E is the injuries there.

I played in goal as a kid, broke fingers, wrists, ankles, cheekbones. I never wanted to go to A&E to have the obvious confirmed, I could've just gone to fracture clinic the next day, instead I clogged A&E to have the glaringly obvious confirmed.

Same with p**sed people, all this red tape about criminals needing medical help before detention for a tiny cut they've caused in the back of the van.

Something needs to change, A&E is clogged with people with non-emergency medical issues for me.

[davycrockett]

Dec 13, 2022 11:41:10 GMT 1 martinshrew said:

I think people have a lot more sympathy with NHS staff because respect of NHS staff is ingrained in the country.

I think patience is very much running out with Dick Lynch and the like who are totally refusing to modernise and change. We're running an 80s railway in Britain compared to the rest of mainland Europe, and far, far more expensive to boot.

But they’ve offered 4% this year with change as a condition. Inflations 12% work it out.

Support for strikers usually holds up especially when the people negotiating have to get approval for any offer from the government. Higher offers have been agreed with negotiators but withdrawn due to lack of ‘approval’ from above. They cancelled a strike as they were near to an agreement but suddenly the deal wasn’t available.

[martinshrew]

Dec 13, 2022 14:55:17 GMT 1 davycrockett said:

Dec 13, 2022 11:41:10 GMT 1 martinshrew said:

I think people have a lot more sympathy with NHS staff because respect of NHS staff is ingrained in the country.

I think patience is very much running out with Dick Lynch and the like who are totally refusing to modernise and change. We're running an 80s railway in Britain compared to the rest of mainland Europe, and far, far more expensive to boot.

But they’ve offered 4% this year with change as a condition. Inflations 12% work it out.

Support for strikers usually holds up especially when the people negotiating have to get approval for any offer from the government. Higher offers have been agreed with negotiators but withdrawn due to lack of ‘approval’ from above. They cancelled a strike as they were near to an agreement but suddenly the deal wasn’t available.

Somewhere between the 4% and 11% inflation is fair. I'd say your average nurse would be delighted with 7.5%.

Asking for 19% is just plain ridiculous. Until they clammer down to a remotely realistic start point I can understand why there's no negotiations to be honest.

[northwestman]

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/13/like-a-horrific-board-game-33-hours-inside-an-nhs-in-crisis

'33 hours inside an NHS in crisis'.

Crammed wards, burnt-out GPs, patients waiting hours for ambulances – the health service is at breaking point.

Well worth a read.

[staffordshrew]

Dec 13, 2022 11:15:53 GMT 1 kenwood said:

Dec 7, 2022 16:07:03 GMT 1 staffordshrew said:

A decent pay rise in the NHS, or we could just clap for carers again, I'm sure they would all appreciate that....

You forgot to mention a very nice badge which nhs staff could proudly wear ! 

I see that Barclay has met with the nurses union and has dug his heels in. The union wanted to enter negotiations, that is sit around a table and have a discussion as is the norm.
According to the union Barclay refused to move from the % increase suggested by the pay review board and therefore , after half an hour the “ negotiations “ closed. 
The man’s an arse .
Certainly austerity measures have played a part in our present predicament. As Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2012-2018 Jeremy Hunt didn’t exactly cover himself in glory , during his tenure junior doctors undertook multiple strikes , the first such action for 40 years.
Here he is now as Chancellor under Sunak’s government who himself is facing pressure after the Mone revelations. That’s not all as Priti Patel is gathering support as she opposes the government on a number of issues.
Brilliant, we are in the s**te and our government is in an internal battle with ex cabinet colleagues .
This isn’t going to end well is it .
We haven’t even started on the impositions of Brexit .

If Barclay had a brain he would negotgiate something in return for more money. I am not privy to the management of the NHS, but, for example, I don't understand why nurses can work for a trust and also register with an agency and pick up shifts with another trust?

If NHS staff want to do more shifts I would want them to do them on overtime rates, rather than agency rates, even if that meant cross charging between trusts.

[staffordshrew]

Dec 13, 2022 16:40:03 GMT 1 northwestman said:

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/13/like-a-horrific-board-game-33-hours-inside-an-nhs-in-crisis

'33 hours inside an NHS in crisis'.

Crammed wards, burnt-out GPs, patients waiting hours for ambulances – the health service is at breaking point.

Well worth a read.

One of the TV chanels does "24 hours in A&E", a programme covering 24 hours in the NHS would be interesting....

[Deleted]

Dec 13, 2022 15:52:30 GMT 1 martinshrew said:

Dec 13, 2022 14:55:17 GMT 1 davycrockett said:

But they’ve offered 4% this year with change as a condition. Inflations 12% work it out.

Support for strikers usually holds up especially when the people negotiating have to get approval for any offer from the government. Higher offers have been agreed with negotiators but withdrawn due to lack of ‘approval’ from above. They cancelled a strike as they were near to an agreement but suddenly the deal wasn’t available.

Somewhere between the 4% and 11% inflation is fair. I'd say your average nurse would be delighted with 7.5%.

Asking for 19% is just plain ridiculous. Until they clammer down to a remotely realistic start point I can understand why there's no negotiations to be honest.

Negotiations need both parties to be prepared to find some middle ground. The RCN sat down with Steve Barclay to negotiate, but he refused to even discuss pay. What was the point in agreeing to the meeting in the first place?

Maybe if he had been prepared to offer around 7.5% the RCN would have agreed to put it to their members, but point blank refusing to budge on wages is only going to make the nurses dig their heels in even further and who can really blame them?

[davycrockett]

Dec 7, 2022 12:16:45 GMT 1 martinshrew said:

I can only speak on personal experience, but I know a lot of friends across different sectors have been averaging 0-3% for years and I don't know anyone who has got more than 6% this year.

Junior Barristers 15 % but maybe you don’t know one.