In 2018 nurses were given a 3 year pay deal in which on paper sounds amazing, 6.5% was reported, however in real terms this was not the case and not all NHS staff were included in this.

900,000 public sector workers are receiving an above inflation payrise, however in the last 10 years, nurses’ roles have massively changed but their payrise has never been bought to inflation and to reflect the responsibility placed on them.

Here are some facts

• Nursing staff are using food banks

(Emily Thornberry, 2017 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08qfq5b)

• Many trusts are around to support nurses in financial hardship

(Eaton Fund http://www.eaton-fund.co.uk/help-nurses.asp)

• in 2018 there was 1 in 8 nursing vacancies (https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3203)

• 50000 more nurses planned by this current government

(https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nurse-numbers-increase-by-8-570-in-the-past-year)

If as a country we are unable to keep the staff we have, how on earth are we going to convince people to come into nursing and allied professions?? We had to lobby to regain bursaries for students after the government took that away and numbers fell. The NHS will be receiving the lowest number of newly qualified nurses as courses were not filled like they were before the bursary was taken away.

We are no longer in the 1950’s where nurses and healthcare workers are doctors aides who blindly follow doctors orders.

We no longer come into the profession young, many NHS workers have had a previous career and bring lots of different life experiences into the NHS that you can’t teach.

We can’t keep living paycheck to paycheck with only our morals and values keeping us going to work each day to care for your loved ones. It is time to change this, make the NHS workers feel worthy and appreciated, not just for a pandemic, not Christmas, but forever.

Lets help the government source their 50,000 nurses and other staff that the NHS desperately need with better wages and as a result quality of life.

This is where the bus idea comes in…..

Our Prime Minister does love a red bus. HE famously utilised his tactic to promote his vote leave. He has spoken previously about his hobbies including making models of buses and painting them (https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnsons-model-buses-other-weird-politician-hobbies/). This gave me the inspiration to create our very own red bus with our message across. This will be able to be driven all over the country to gather public support, and since Boris Johnson loves his buses, I'm sure he would love to look at this one!

This bus is covid friendly as only requires 1 driver minimum to be driven around which at a time when the country is facing a second wave and healthcare staff will be working round the clock, we can still get our message across.

If you can spare some money to be able to support healthcare workers gaining a payrise, please donate. Your money will be used to fund the bus, the decal and promotion material for future demonstrations. If you are unable to give at this point, please share this to promote this great venture. Any money left over from this campaign will be used for future NHS 15% Pay campaigns.

A nurse kindly allowed me to share her thoughts with you..

"I have worked in the NHS as a colorectal surgical nurse, Critical Care nurse and now most recently Outpatient Sister.

During this pandemic NHS staff did not have access to the correct PPE in the beginning and many have lost their lives.

50,000 people have also lost the lives. Some of my colleagues have long tail Covid and have had to leave their jobs due to poor health.

With another wave on the horizon (that is not flu) many of my nurse colleagues are wondering how they will cope.

In mental health services we worry about the impact on our patients and their families, who are already struggling. But we worry too about our nurse colleagues who have a suicide rate of 23% higher than the general population.

Many nurses were already leaving the NMC register, so recruitment and retention was already a problem - it may now become worse.

Nursing is the lowest paid graduate profession. Why do we value them so little?

Clapping was a nice public gesture but NHS staff deserve proper remuneration. For those who say that we cannot afford to pay nurses because the economy has suffered, I say we didn’t pay them properly when the economy was doing better. No government has really cared enough.

MPs have received a 20% pay rise - above inflation. Their pay has risen by more than 16k in 10 years, whereas a top Band 5 nurse’s pay rose by just over 2k in 10 years.

During Covid-19 we’ve seen that the economy cannot cope with a pandemic, which means there is no wealth without health. So Nurses and other NHS staff are absolutely vital to getting the economy back on its feet.

Let’s invest in NHS staff and ensure that our services can still be staffed. After that, it’s time to turn attention to the resourcing of those services"

So far 83,000 healthcare workers (at time of writing) and public support us, and there is always room for one more! 😊 Follow us using the links below

https://www.facebook.com/NHSworkersSayNo

https://www.facebook.com/groups/314519933024565

https://twitter.com/NurseSayNO

Thankyou