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ANGRY NURSES VOTE OVER CALL FOR PAY PROTEST

Nurses are voting over protest

Thursday May 17,2007

By Victoria Fletcher

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NURSES will vote on industrial action over pay for the first time in history, it emerged yesterday.

The move could lead to months of protest, with nurses refusing to work overtime or carry out duties for which they are not paid.

It could cost NHS trusts £13million a week in extra staff to cover the gaps.

The Royal College of Nursing yesterday decided to ballot all its 300,000 members over the staged pay award announced by ministers earlier this year. They were given just 1.5 per cent until November when the sum rises to 2.5 per cent – the equivalent of 1.9 per cent in a full year, or just £6 a week for the average nurse.

But rather than call an all-out strike, nurses are expected to vote for industrial action that will not affect patients.

Dr Peter Carter, RCN general secretary, said: “There are only so many times nurses can be asked to accept the unacceptable.

“Nurses are dedicated public servants who work hard and play by the rules. So, when we end up in a situation where nurses are forced to talk about industrial action, we know that they have been pushed to the limit.”

According to the RCN, around 173,000 nurses work more than six hours of unpaid overtime a week – adding up to more than one million hours. If they all left their shifts on time, trusts would be forced to hire agency nurses to cover the gaps at a cost of up to £13million a week.

The RCN believes that giving nurses their pay award in full would cost £60million.

And they are outraged that Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt this week rejected giving nurses any surplus in the NHS purse to be announced next month.

Last night, Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb said the nurses’ mood was understandable: “Nurses are the backbone of the health service. They should not be paying the price for Labour’s incompetent handling of the NHS.”

Tory Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, added: “I understand that nurses are angry. They are angry with a Government which has spent hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money on pointless reorganisations and management consultants, yet won’t fund an independent review award.”

INSTEAD OF PAYING DOUBLE TO AGENCIES FOR INCOMPETENT MIGRANT STAFF!

17.05.07, 11:56am

Employ the many thousands of newly qualified BRITISH staff and then nurses could actually work the hours they get paid for and be paid more!

Agency charges, incompetence, all cost money add on the cost of training and then dumping these people on the dole queue and use some common sense!

Employ them use their skills, build on their training to improve the NHS agency staff cost double so twice that number can be employed full time at no cost! Additional benefits will be overworked nurses will be less likely to be off with stress or exhaustion requiring additional agency staff.

WIN WIN not corruption and fraud!

• Posted by: The_Way_I_See_It • Report Comment

ANGELS DESERVE MORE

17.05.07, 8:38am

Add up all the Nurses NETT pay, (after accomodation charges and parking charges as well !), -- Add up all the Ministers pay and expences, together with useless NHS managers and under managers pay, THEN SWAP THE TOTALS and distribute it!

That should give the Angels a decent well deserved pay rise!

And give the useless lot presently in charge, more than they are worth.

• Posted by: JAYDEE • Report Comment