We won't need those fields soon anyway... let the sweaties annoy Greta on their own. She'll rock up at Holyrood with blue face paint on holding a Mel Gibson effigy and proceed to stick pins in it to get her point across no doubt.
I'm not sure the unions are that determined to achieve a 19% payrise. I guess they'd settle for an inflation matching increase, maybe 10%. I'm a frontline NHS nurse practitioner and didn't vote for or take part in the two strike days. I wouldn't say that I'm poorly paid, but the working conditions have been challenging over the covid-19 years. The early part was hard, as there was no treatment or vaccine for covid-19. I was expected to work closely with severely unwell covid patients, who were spreading the virus to many staff who went near them at a time where many patients were in ITU on ventilators, younger than me and normally as fit as me, but dying in large numbers. So work was scary. A nurse colleague and his parents all died of covid one week. I got plenty clapping from the neighbours and a 3% pay rise the following year which was immediately clawed back via 3% increased pension. It was a paycut actually. NHS pay and pension cuts have not kept up with inflation for many years. I'm not demanding everyone on here pays me more money and I'm not going to strike, but I think that many frontline NHS should have had a medal for working in dangerous conditions for the period that covid was killing many and there was little effective treatments or a vaccine. A little medal. Not made of gold. Cheap. That would have given me something I'd value.
Thanks for your honest response and I’m sure that most if not all will appreciate that. I highly praise the work you guys do. I had two operations myself last year in difficult circumstances. The first was a botched job. The second was a success. Having said that I could see the strain the departments were under. So I fully appreciate that. My concerns are that because of the issues with the doctor practices in not dealing with relatively easy and straight forward issues the emphasis gets pushed onto A and E and others in the hospitals. A lot of people should even be in there. As for the pay increase. At 19% I think I’d a bit steep: but the unions are using the current climate as an opportunity and the NHS workers who are striking are unfortunately a puppet in this. I suspect a pay rise of 8-10% will be accepted. You may have had your pay rise reduced by the pension increase but that will potentially benefit you in the future. This means you have popped up a scale as a result of the increase. For the record please do keep doing what you are doing as it’s important.
I'm on record as saying how much I value you guys mate. IF you ever fancy a pint and I'm up Consett (tomorrow PM as a long shot) I'll dip my hand in my Yorkshire pocket and buy you a pint and thank you in person. Just PM me if you are ever up the Windy City watering holes and if I'm out, so will my wallet be. My mate is exactly the same as you, not striking but feels under appreciated beyond just the money. My personal view is that Frontline staff who worked through the pandemic could perhaps get additional holiday, perpetually and it could be paid for by some of the trusts trimming away the bureaucratic fat further up the food chain as there seems to be a lot to go at. Then resource could be diverted to right areas. The solution therefore would be within the NHS which wouldn't cause issues elsewhere in the public sector.
So the “turkeys voting for Christmas” solution. Not having a go as I totally agree with the suggestion but sadly it’s just not going to happen.
Fair comment. It needs a 3rd party to go in and look properly under the bonnet to find the savings. They won't be offered up.
I’ll find them arse hole middle management, outside consultants, locums, and blue cloud thinkers and 3rd party agencies ….. your welcome
