This is what we're up against and some are trying to fight back against too.
The average graduate starting salary now being over £30,000 it's vital that nursing salaries be immediately brought up to this level.
Burning your money in the EU:
http://www.ukip.tv/?p=839
Is that every household costing 5K or every tax paying household? One guesses those of us who are actually stupid enough to work and pay will be paying out at least 50% more on that.
Its a slave society, its just the poor are now the slave owners!
Great post.
One thing though, I did read the BBC expenses thing and I'm afraid I don't think it unreasonable that the DG of the BBC stays in a posh hotel.
What annoys me more are the stories of the numbers of people sent to hollwood to cover the oscars etc.
Still, your basic premise is correct. The freeby culture is far too prevalent.
On what planet is the average graduate starting salary over 30k per year???
£30,000 a year? Get over it. Even the best, most sought after start at £25K in London, and that's usually in banking/law.
Most graduates I know are barely clearing that after 5 years of work.
Of course, you can swipe over half that away in tax immediately. I'm really fed up with having all this tax taken and getting so little for it in return.
I would love to do BUPA rather than play c-diff roulette. Unfortunatly my wages have been depresed for many years.
I earn less now that I did 10 years ago.
And my bosses have announced for the second time in a few months that they do not have enough money to pay the wages.
I certainly have not benefited from the Brown years.
I agree on nurses not needing degrees, but it's a bit rich of doctors to blame nurses for poor infection control. Doctors are far more slack than nurses on basic stuff like washing hands between patients and wearing gloves.
On what planet is the average graduate starting salary over 30k per year???
On planet RCN propaganda - "as a graduate profession we should be paid at least the same as teachers, engineers, doctors and solicitors".
and they stopped us going into the Euro.
That implies that someone else was going to but they stopped it; they would have had us in ten years ago if they thought they could win a referendum, so not really something to congratulate them on is it?
Tyler, you do realise that practically all the UK trained nurses in BUPA hospitals are NHS trained don't you?
DM Andy,
The point is that BUPA has to satisfy their customers or lose the income that comes with them. The NHS does not.
Independent schools get much better results than state schools, even though their staff go to the same universities and training institutions.
It's not about the people, its about incentives.
The EURO?
What's the betting that 'if' Labour win the next election the Euro will be held up as a solution to the failed economic policies the Evil Tories have forced the Labour Government into?
Damn it! If only that twat Cameron would mind his own business and let Gordon get on with it, we wouldn't be having half these problems now.
I just hope our much beloved Mandy and Gords can sweet talk the leaders of Germany and France - by the way, are Sarko and that Merkle woman seeing each other? They never seem to be apart these days? - into letting us join their funny money club. We could always offer them our car and aero industries as a down payment.... Oh, right, bugger! Well okay then, some chocolates and flowers.
Thing is, I'm sure Big G is already on the case and is right now crayoning a letter of application.
DMandy said..."practically all the UK trained nurses in BUPA hospitals are NHS trained don't you?"
And your point is what?
Most nurses trained by the nhs are intelligent and will seek the best working conditions and salary that they can?
or the socialist view
Nurses trained under appalling conditions with appalling salaries must be forever indentured to the state at continuing below market salaries so they can be abused by the like of commissar hewitt. After twenty years of service they will be awarded the order of the red star and be issued a new uniform approved by the collective.
or yet a third view of USA, Saudi Arabian, Canadian and Australian hospitals.
Welcome nurses, come here we will pay you what you are worth and treat you well.
You see DMandy, you really have to get over the idea that the socialists own the workers. They can direct them, limit their budgets to make working conditions intolerable, limit their mobility temporarily, bully and abuse them while they are young, but own them...never.
Cascadian,
You talk about " Nurses trained under appalling conditions with appalling salaries must be forever indentured to the state at continuing below market salaries"
This, of course, is far from the reality, although I agree with your point about socialism. Nurses get a very good deal when it comes to training. Diploma nurses are charged no fees and are actually paid whilst training. Degree nurses are charged tuition fees, but these are paid for them by the NHS (so, in effect, no fees). They are also eligible for means-tested bursaries.
So nurses get an extremely good deal when training compared to almost any other students and have no tuition fees to repay.
Newly qualified nurses (diploma or degree) also get salaries (around £20,000)that compare rather well with most graduate occupations. They also have practically guaranteed jobs (graduate nurse unemployment is only 1.5% compared to around 8% for engineers, for example).
Nurses get a pretty good deal out of the NHS/taxpayer. They are also paid better than in the rest of Europe. Yes, they could get more in the USA, but this is true of most jobs.
HJ you have perceived that my comments were primarily directed to the indentured servitude aspect of continuing employment past the training period that most socialists subscribe to. While they love to witter on about freedom from slavery apparently personal choice cannot exist in the State industries.
I thank you for the factual information regarding current salaries and benefits but would suggest that working conditions, hours of work, and ability to schedule leisure time are major reasons for nurses choosing other employers.
tutt tutt Tyler - not like u to get is soooooo wrong.
Registered Nurses are fast being replaced by unregulated Health Care Assistants dressed in nurses uniforms. 70%( unregulated -30% registered/ licenced) is the ratio being touted on the grapevine The subliminal message being they are. Too posh to wash ? have a look a registered nurse ratio to number of patients - lucky to get medication on time and Health Care Assistants were developed by DOH as cheap alternative to RNs. Not everyone on the ward is aN RN - start asking questions.
As for the Nursing Medical Council - its mission statement is Protecting the patients' but is seemingly is fixated on 'diversity'.
Don't ask me what the Royal College of Nursing does except go along with every government idea proposed.
to summarise: don't worry about RNs undertaking taking degree courses - they'll probably be only a dozen in each hospital by the time within the next decade. toodle oo
it's nice to see the old 'doctors are worse at personal hygeine than nurses' myth, never seen any evidence to support this crap. Most nurses are capable of passing a couple of A levels at most, their degree would be worthless
"The point is that BUPA has to satisfy their customers"
Indeed - and I notice that they are happy to transfer patients into NHS intensive care units and emergency theatres.
lost_nurse,
You miss the point entirely. The reason why the likes of BUPA don't supply a comprehensive service is quite simple - the size of the private/charitable sector in the UK is too small to sustain it. Therefore BUPA has to concentrate on market niches. This is because people are heavily taxed to pay for the NHS and therefore most can't afford to pay again. If funding came with the patient, you can be sure that BUPA and others would provide such a service.
You miss the point entirely
And you missed mine - that such transfers are standard (and often involve the same surgeon). In short: it's simplistic nonsense to slag off the NHS and praise BUPA in the same sentence. Anybody who works in UK healthcare (private or public) understands that.
Therefore BUPA has to concentrate on market niches.
What, like care homes and elective surgery (and all the rest)? How incredibly niche.
lost_nurse,
I don't know whether you are being deliberately obtuse, or whether you are just intellectually entrenched. I didn't praise BUPA or slag off the NHS. The point I made was that if you are a paying customer you have the sanction of choosing a different supplier.I'm absolutely sure that transfers would happen from NHS to BUPA if patients had the choice and the money to do so. The difference is incentives. The fact (of which I was well aware)that you often get the same surgeon, illustrates the problem - NHS surgeons have an incentive to operate inefficiently in order to maintain waiting lists so that they can gain additional income from treating privately those who can afford to bypass waiting NHS lists.
And yes, care homes and elective surgery ARE niches.
NHS surgeons have an incentive to operate inefficiently
That may be an issue in elective surgery, but I can assure you that it ain't the case in emergency lists. Not by a long shot.
I didn't praise BUPA or slag off the NHS.
NHS/BUPA: it was actually general point (although directed in part at Wat/Crippen, on account of their usual comments). People are all too eager to set up some kind of false dichotomy between the two, without addressing the inherent working relationships. I should also say that I think Wat does a massive disservice to Staff Nurses on the shopfloor, who (by and large) are bloody well not "too posh to wash" - but are massively overstretched (as Elio suggests). On general wards, an RN can be responsible for twelve patients at a time - quite frankly, it's an impossible workload and patient care suffers accordingly. Now, I have grave concerns about some aspects of nurse education - but it's galling to see nurses repeatedly blamed in this manner.
The sanction of choosing a different supplier
Actually, I don't have a problem with patient choice. I just happen to think that notions of "competition" in emergency care are utter bullshit (see haloscan comments, passim).
And yes, care homes and elective surgery ARE niches.
By and large, the care home industry in this country does a piss-poor (and overly priced) job of things. But that's another whole discussion... As for elective surgery, the likes of Cinven (PE owners of Spire - BUPA hospital assets, as was) aren't overly interested in filling niches (unless you count cosmetic surgery or "low risk" ops), so much as cherrypicking via ISTCs, etc. And at the messier end of insurance-dominated healthcare, I don't see market players just fighting to pick up (say) bowel obstructions in elderly patients with chronic COPD, but I admire your optimism. Continental systems correct for this accordingly (and allow for a bigger role for charitable/NFPT institutions) - not exactly a pure "market", I notice.
lost_nurse,
I am very much in favour of a system much more like in continental countries and, yes, I know that they are not 'pure' market systems. What I am against is a large monopoly-funded centrally directed and unaccountable system. Note that before the NHS we had many medical facilities that were either charities, mutually funded or locally run and accountable as well as 'pure private'. The NHS appropriated most of these (scandalously in many cases).
I don't accept your point about ISTCs. Leaving aside the issue that they are just suppliers to the NHS (and therefore hardly independent and directly answerable to the user), it is just wrong to accuse them of 'cherry picking'. It is the NHS which decides what treatments it wants ISTCs to provide and which patients to farm out to them - and it usually finds it easier and administratively more convenient to farm out more straightforward cases. The ISTCs cannot and do not 'cherry pick' - When Allyson Pollock made this claim and David Worskett of the NHS Partners Network pointed out that it was simply untrue.
Yes, but I what I actually said was:
"cherrypicking via ISTCs"
My point was less to do with the actual handling of referrals - and more about the resulting (taxpayer-funded) profits. Pollock was right insomuch as this kind of "farming out" is very poor value. As with PFI, NuLab kindly enabled the first wave contracts to be specified with public sector arms tied firmly behind backs - with the provisio (of course) that the battered ol' city infirmary sorts out all the tricky/messy stuff. Meanwhile, ISTCs have done little to improve standards (beyond adding some very expensive capacity), and may indeed have significant clinical issues (see ongoing arguments re: surgical training, poor quality audit, readmission rates etc). The likes of Cinven love 'em, of course.
You may argue that this simply characterises NHS procurement. I would disagree - the tragedy of NuLab is that they took an under-funded (but reasonable value for money) service, and then sank what used to be a fairly tight ship. Much of the "simple shopping" (cf Wat) is actually at the behest of McKinsey, etc - all parachuted in like legions of snake oil salesmen.
http://www.hc2d.co.uk/content.ph...?
contentId=2432
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