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NHS nurse: Why I rejected the 5% pay offer [1]
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Date: 2023-04
In my first role as a newly qualified nurse in England last year, I didn’t work a single shift where there were enough nurses on duty. Even when I wasn’t on shift, I knew there were never enough nurses. Every day, the group chat for my ward would light up with requests for people to come in on their days off.
It all got too much for me, and a lot of my colleagues. I was signing leaving cards almost weekly, it felt like a revolving door. It was a vicious cycle, nurses pushed to the edge by short staffing would quit – but there weren’t any permanent replacements being brought in, just a few agency staff picking up shifts or nurses from other areas being asked to come and support us.
It’s these working conditions that meant I could not vote for the government’s proposed 5% pay increase, offered to nurses last month in a bid to end the strikes. With the Royal College of Nursing having this afternoon announced that nurses have rejected the offer, it appears that many of my colleagues found it just as insulting as I did.
For the amount of work nurses do, day in and day out, the offer of a 5% pay bump and a one-off payment made a mockery of our profession. After tax, National Insurance, pension payments and student loan repayments, I’d have got £15 extra a week.
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What can £15 get me in the current cost of living crisis? It’d pay a tiny part of the increase in my council tax and energy bills but would still leave me out of pocket and ending each month with no money left to put aside in my savings.
It’s not just about the money either – patient safety is paramount. With such severe staffing shortages, I never felt I could give my all to each of my patients. At any given time I’d have a minimum of 10 complex patients – some with bleeds, others requiring one-to-one attention due to being at risk of falling – and still need to spend time with a patient who is dying and support their family, as well as attending to other people who weren’t feeling well or needed medications.
It was too much. I’d come home from work every single night at 8pm and spend my evening worrying: ‘Have I done enough for these patients?’ ‘I hope I haven’t missed something crucial that could harm somebody.’
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/nhs-nurse-strike-reject-pay-deal-5-percent-insulting-why-i-voted-no-rcn/
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