Labour will give pay rise to ‘overworked and underpaid’ NHS staff
Shadow health secretary to unveil plan to lift 1% cap and introduce independent pay review body to agree public sector wages
Blimey, who would have thought it eh?
Labour plan to lift the 1% cap on pay rises for NHS staff and move towards public sector wages being agreed through collective bargaining and the evidence of independent pay review bodies.
How independent though? They going to put the likes of me or Ecks on the review? Or Snippa?
Yet we pride ourselves on lacking the corruption of Russia or Nigeria.
> NHS staff are underpaid and there aren’t enough of them
The food is terrible and the portions are too small.
Just who in the NHS is underpaid? Certainly not the bloated bureaucrazy who can fuck up and cause umpteen fatalities and still hang on to their promotion prospects and pensions! Those at the top are all Labourites and those at the bottom, attracted to the UK by generous pay.
No more than half of the board will be union members. The other half will be ex-members, prospective Labour party candidates, ex-BBC and Guardian journalists and one conservative for garnish and to use (abuse) during Hate Week.
Had I the chance and resources (ie enough cash to hire the killers) then the need for continuity in actual medical treatment of patients is the only thing that would stop me going through the NHS with actual literal fire and the sword.
Don’t think I have much chance of getting the job Tim –but thanks for the thought.
Labour are apparently going to find the money by reversing corporation tax cuts (‘cos, y’know ‘Boo companies’).
To add 1% to the NHS pay bill costs £500m.
What’s the gap between income from the tax rise and expenditure on the NHS?
“It will ask the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to assess whether legally enforced staffing ratios should be introduced in some health settings.”
Wut? How are you going to manage this, turn patients away when you hit the limit? Oh, right, they’ll just let the waiting lists grow, more poeple will die before they get treatment and the delay will screw the outcomes for all the others.
“Public Sector Pay” almost never includes the blatant handout pensions that many of them get. By “Blatant Handout” I mean that it’s equivalent to something like a 30% salary increase. Unless its the Police Pension or they get a promotion in which case it’s off the scale.
The Public Sector generally has no idea of its value ; or of the above. They state, repeatedly “I contribute to my pension” but don’t seem to grasp that it matters whether you contribute £2.50 or £2,500. They think they will walk into private sector jobs (but oddly very few of them try), that they are overworked (they aren’t).
Much of the “work” is created by other unemployables. The classic example that everyone knows if OFSTED (even though similar is replicated throughout the public sector). Vast amounts of time and money are generated producing worthless statistics and paperwork for OFSTED by both teachers, head teachers and LEA people. Vast amounts of training and tracking is done.
Much of it is worthless ; in a large high school you can make some kind of coherent year on year tracking, but a one form entry primary ? Doesn’t work ; if the triplets Granny dies on the day before the tests, you’re in special measures.
None of it helps at all ; at best OFSTEDs judgements tell people what they already know (intake ability drives results and behaviour) at worst, it’s just random.
Paul
This is also a factor in the NHS, with GP surrgeries. A lot of appointments not being clinically necessary, and correlation between that category and what might loosely be described as “unemployables”.
GPs spending too much of their time acting as social services was one way I heard it described.
The Labour Party say public sector pay will rise.
Public sector pay will be determined by independent bodies.
What if the independent body thinks it should be cut? ( e.g. in Middlesbrough, Burnley, Merthyr ). How do people fit the two insistences in the same breath without their pants falling down
It seems Labour believes that health workers are saintly figures who save lives and aid the sick out of pure goodness, but also that they won’t do a good job unless they’re really well paid for it.
See the analysis on Guido that shows that women under 40 are the only grouping with a strong preference for Labour. Must be all those underpaid nurses.
“Labour will give pay rise to ‘overworked and underpaid’ NHS staff”: how are they going to distinguish them from the other employees?
AlexM,
I wonder if that’s just an artifact of Steve Sailer’s analysis of U.S. voting trends. He dug into the data and found that it wasn’t so much young women vs older women; but unmarried women (for Hillary) vs married married (for Trump). I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that support for Labour is one of those things – like career ambitions – that radically changes after childbirth.
I hardly think two baby-eating NHS-hating neoliberal bastards would be capable of an ‘independent’ review.
This ‘Pay NHS Angels more’ schtick won’t fly like it used to. Too many people have experienced the reality of NHS ‘care’ and realise that the people in it are as greedy and self interested as the most rampant private sector business, and in fact can get away with far worse behaviour than the private sector, as there is no way the patient can withdraw his custom and money from the NHS.
I think over the next few elections we will see a crossover, whereby the NHS becomes toxic for anyone seen to be supporting it. I think it could be on a par with how support for the unions hollowed out in the 70s, allowing Mrs T to take them on, knowing that the broad mass of the public had had enough with them. The same position will arrive in the UK within a decade. It will need another Maggie with the balls to take on the entrenched vested interests though.
“By “Blatant Handout” I mean that it’s equivalent to something like a 30% salary increase.” Aye, but it remains a damn fool thing to say. The pensions are deferred pay, they are widely, publicly advertised, and they are above board.
Me, I’d stop them, but it’s absurd to call them a “Blatant Handout”.
‘introduce independent pay review body to agree public sector wages’
It’s a trick!
Is NHS having trouble attracting and retaining staff? If not, no raise is indicated. If getting staff is easy, they should cut pay.
Gamecock
Actually, yes, the NHS is having real difficulties getting the right staff.
From those I know, increased bureaucracy / regulation is just one of many issues. For example, the aim of becoming a GP in a practice would appear to be far less appealing as a career compared to 20 or 30 years ago.
And large numbers are expected to walk out (retire early) over the next x years.
One of the things that might be high on my list, in May’s shoes, is advertising outside of the UK (down under, for example) and looking to issue a large number of appropriate (medium or long term) visas. Otherwise, the NHS is in trouble whatever other tinkering takes place around the edges.
Interesting prediction Jim. A couple more strikes, a few more immigrants who’ve experienced healthcare in other EU countries, maybe a bit more analysis on mainstream tv of market systems, and the tide of opinion could start to turn.
Doesn’t the pay of nurses already get sorted by independent body?
Labour will give pay rise to ‘overworked and underpaid’ NHS staff
Well, that’s OK then. There can’t be more than a few who are ‘overworked and underpaid’. 10 tops.
Is the shortage one of enough qualified people in the population or those who are qualified not wanting to work.
If the former, that’s the fault of the State because it decides how many people will be trained. If the latter it’s not necessarily a pay problem and raising pay may not be the solution.
My own gut feel based on observation and reading is that it’s a combination of over qualification with poor career prospects, bad management and an element of pay.
The solution, which has been discussed here a few times, is to do away with national bargaining and let local areas or even individual hospitals decide pay levels. This won’t happen because we have a National Healt Service which means it has to be centrally planned.
That could have merit, PF.
But paying people way too much money so they accept the crap isn’t a good solution.
I agree.
Interestingly, on the point you make, in reverse, Labour completely screwed up when they offered GPs a trivial reduction in “pay terms” which enabled practices to opt out from fully providing 24/7 cover (which practices used to provide). It was utterly cretinous, even by Labour’s standards. The value gained (per GP) was far more than the trivial salary given up.
A knock on effect (that I recall from some) was the gradual change in expectation from newer GPs – “partners” expecting more that of a salaried type career (ie towards “office hours”), rather than the much fuller committment (in partnership responsibility, that included 24 hour call-out) that had always gone before. Etc..
UK average earnings £27,600
NHS average earnings £31,300 (England) 12.5% higher
UK average earnings £27,600
NHS nurses average earnings £33,000 19.6% higher
I work in the NHS as a Doctor.
Few people are overworked and underpaid.
You could fire 30% of the staff in my hospital and not notice any difference.