Those poor nurses

[Barry]

They are better people than mean spirited you, though, Barry.

I suppose it was mean spirited of me to work at the local hospital during the height of the deaths in April, May last year, helping them make PPE and moving all their stuff around the wards for no payment. But you carry on with your baseless allegations.

Putting their lives on the line - many of them have lost their lives - fighting a virus you ignorantly believe is not an issue.

Yes, I did that, too. Entering wards without PPE. And I have never said the virus is "not an issue"

1% after this past year and on top of all those years of pay freezes is just an insult.

That's just an opinion. But based on what else you said in that post, it is probably worthless and hurtful insults.
Now, run along please.

[johnofgwent]

So you didn't get much of a bonus this year Pat?

Well, I got a 30% pay rise, but I did have to dump a job in a Chinese owned automotive industry and join a British owned challenger bank to get it ...

[grumzed]

If nothing else this paltry award to NHS workers is a massive PR mistake. The incremental cost of this is not so significant when compared to the overall costs resulting from the pandemic. We all will be tightening our belts a bit but I doubt there will be many resenting a just reward to the NHS staff who, more than most, have worked much harder with more, often unpaid, hours.

[srb7677]

And what if there is no money at the moment?

They have managed to find billions for a track and trace that doesnt work, all handed out without tender to their mates. Governments seem able to find money when they want to. These past 12 months have taught us that. The NHS workers are an exception whose contribution should be financially rewarded.

I suspect that if a penny on income tax were put to the people in a referendum to exclusively fund an NHS pay rise of decent proportions, you might be mean-spirited and ungrateful enough to vote against it but a majority would back it. I know I would. But when it comes to tax and spend there are always ways to finance something - I could suggest many. It is just a matter of political will.

[Nick]

I have no reason to assume that you are stupid so therefore you must know that if pay is frozen year on year or the rises are well below inflation, the value of starting pay and pay at every point on the grade scale diminishes over time. So individuals might increase their pay by going up grades but overall and on average they are still getting poorer. And certainly poorer than they would have been.

A disgusting way to thank them for their efforts these past 12 months. They don't want tw*ts clapping like performing seals. They want and deserve a decent pay rise.

And what if there is no money at the moment?

[srb7677]

This is the usual claptrap, nurses haven't had a decent pay rise Blah blah blah. But the different between this type of employment and normal employment is that there are regular pay grade increases that no one ever mentions. These grade increases seem to be every couple of years and represent roughly an 8% increase, 4% PA plus the 1% doesn't seem too bad to me.

I have no reason to assume that you are stupid so therefore you must know that if pay is frozen year on year or the rises are well below inflation, the value of starting pay and pay at every point on the grade scale diminishes over time. So individuals might increase their pay by going up grades but overall and on average they are still getting poorer. And certainly poorer than they would have been.

A disgusting way to thank them for their efforts these past 12 months. They don't want tw*ts clapping like performing seals. They want and deserve a decent pay rise.

[patman post]

Which means that a nurse starts on around £21,000, which is more than she will get at Greggs. And the staff there don't get the chance to marry a doctor.

The NHS is now so bloated that it now employs more than 10% of the UK's workforce and gobbles up one pound out of every six of that collected in taxes. At this rate we will have to start importing patients to justifying our medics existence.

Sad. Anyone who regularly eats Greggs — as staff there may well do — probably needs their own doctor.
And any bloating experienced by the NHS probably comes from the increasing number of obese among the community that consume too much of what Greggs offers...

[patman post]

Clearly you were never in the forces then where putting your life on the line is the given. I got a 50p per week pay rise in 1988, so you're singing to the wrong crowd.

A nurse interviewed on Times Radio said she's done seven years in the army, and hadn't seen anywhere near the death she's experienced on the wards over the past 12 months. Hearsay, of course, but it's worth thinking about...

[Borchester]

The last year has forced many businesses to adjust their headcount. It's only fair to reward the remaining individuals, who have worked hard, by paying them bonuses. If anything, employers should probably be doing more to incentivise overperformance during these turbulent times.
Barclays, for one, obviously agrees. Its pre-tax profits fell to £3.1bn for 2020 from £4.4bn a year earlier, with earnings hit by a jump in bad debt provisions. But it  paid its chief executive, Jes Staley, £4m and handed larger bonuses to its bankers despite a 30% drop in annual profits. Barclays also announced it was restarting dividend payments, with plans to pay shareholders 1p per share for 2020 and launch a £700m share buyback programme...

So you didn't get much of a bonus this year Pat?

[patman post]

The last year has forced many businesses to adjust their headcount. It's only fair to reward the remaining individuals, who have worked hard, by paying them bonuses. If anything, employers should probably be doing more to incentivise overperformance during these turbulent times.
Barclays, for one, obviously agrees. Its pre-tax profits fell to £3.1bn for 2020 from £4.4bn a year earlier, with earnings hit by a jump in bad debt provisions. But it  paid its chief executive, Jes Staley, £4m and handed larger bonuses to its bankers despite a 30% drop in annual profits. Barclays also announced it was restarting dividend payments, with plans to pay shareholders 1p per share for 2020 and launch a £700m share buyback programme...

[Nick]

They are better people than mean spirited you, though, Barry.

Putting their lives on the line - many of them have lost their lives - fighting a virus you ignorantly believe is not an issue. 1% after this past year and on top of all those years of pay freezes is just an insult.

Clearly you were never in the forces then where putting your life on the line is the given. I got a 50p per week pay rise in 1988, so you're singing to the wrong crowd.

[Nick]

They are better people than mean spirited you, though, Barry.

Putting their lives on the line - many of them have lost their lives - fighting a virus you ignorantly believe is not an issue. 1% after this past year and on top of all those years of pay freezes is just an insult.

Any privately owned business that had took the hits the government has taken in the last 12 months would have give zero pay increases. I think the government has gone above and beyond to give that 1%. Subsequently Boris has stated it is all they could afford.

[Borchester]

A Band 5 nurse with relevant training takes home less than £350 a week after stoppages. And they're faced with extra work due to staff shortages


Since the UK made the decision to leave the European Union, the number of new nurses and midwives from the EEA has significantly decreased. In the year 2018/19, the number of new registrants from the EEA was less than one thousand, while almost 9.4 thousand joined from the EEA in 2015/16, which was before the referendum concerning the EU membership. 
https://www.statista.com/statistics/318922/number-of-nurses-in-the-uk/

Which means that a nurse starts on around £21,000, which is more than she will get at Greggs. And the staff there don't get the chance to marry a doctor.

The NHS is now so bloated that it now employs more than 10% of the UK's workforce and gobbles up one pound out of every six of that collected in taxes. At this rate we will have to start importing patients to justifying our medics existence.

[srb7677]

Throughout this crisis in the NHS the nurses have been given free food, free shopping, free parking, free phone data, first in the shops queue, as much overtime as they could handle...
The rest of the country have been furloughed, businesses decimated, mental health badly affected whilst we support the NHS.
The NHS and nurses and doctors are not gods. Let's stop pretending they are.

They are better people than mean spirited you, though, Barry.

Putting their lives on the line - many of them have lost their lives - fighting a virus you ignorantly believe is not an issue. 1% after this past year and on top of all those years of pay freezes is just an insult.

[patman post]

A Band 5 nurse with relevant training takes home less than £350 a week after stoppages. And they're faced with extra work due to staff shortages


Since the UK made the decision to leave the European Union, the number of new nurses and midwives from the EEA has significantly decreased. In the year 2018/19, the number of new registrants from the EEA was less than one thousand, while almost 9.4 thousand joined from the EEA in 2015/16, which was before the referendum concerning the EU membership. 
https://www.statista.com/statistics/318922/number-of-nurses-in-the-uk/