State ownership of companies

[TJC1]

I knew it. I knew you couldn't put a figure on it.

 

Job done.

 

Well done, proud of ya.

[*_ash_*]

Well done, proud of ya.

 

I don't need or require praise, sarcastic or not. You lot aren't hard to spot.

 

No figure yet then?

[Cyclone]

Nursing used to be paid identically to teaching and policing, in the 70's... That link was lost a long time ago, that's the basis I'd use to suggest that nurses are underpaid.

[TJC1]

I don't need or require praise, sarcastic or not. You lot aren't hard to spot.

 

No figure yet then?

 

Figure for what? Starting nurses are on 21k. So higher than that.

 

---------- Post added 11-08-2015 at 09:21 ----------

 

Nursing used to be paid identically to teaching and policing, in the 70's... That link was lost a long time ago, that's the basis I'd use to suggest that nurses are underpaid.

 

Teachers are probably underpaid too.

[Eater Sundae]

I consider my work to be more useful in a moral sense than similar work in the private sector, which is why I tolerate reduced pay and conditions.

I would have expected nurses to take the same attitude.

I don't strike, and I've never belonged to a union. The way I look at it, if I don't like my job I can always quit.

 

There is the point...

 

Would you prefer to be treated by a nurse who you knew loved his/her job, or one who might be doing it for the money. Maybe nurses should be underpaid?

[El Cid]

Teachers are probably underpaid too.

 

Unless they get revalued, teachers get the same pay rise as other public sector workers. It should be possible for them to get 1% extra each year until they reach their value.

[TJC1]

There is the point...

 

Would you prefer to be treated by a nurse who you knew loved his/her job, or one who might be doing it for the money. Maybe nurses should be underpaid?

 

More money attracts higher calibre candidates. Id rather be treated by a higher quality nurse or taught by a better teacher.

[unbeliever]

There is the point...

 

Would you prefer to be treated by a nurse who you knew loved his/her job, or one who might be doing it for the money. Maybe nurses should be underpaid?

 

I think the freelance nature of GPs and Dentists should be dealt with.

Either nationalise them, or put the whole NHS on the same footing.

 

I'm not suggesting for one second that NHS treatment should charged for at the point of use. As demonstrated by GPs, you don't have to nationalise something completely to avoid that. It's just not obvious that hospitals have to be fully nationalised if GPs and Dentists don't.

 

---------- Post added 11-08-2015 at 10:08 ----------

 

More money attracts higher calibre candidates. Id rather be treated by a higher quality nurse or taught by a better teacher.

 

I'd agree in general.

What should be cut to raise the money?

 

The NHS budget is £113.3billion. About 40% of that is staff costs.

If you want to increase pay by say 50% for the majority of the staff, you need about £23billion.

I suppose we could just have 33% fewer nurses and doctors, that way we could pay the ones who were left 50% more.

Edited August 11, 2015 by unbeliever

[Hots on]

TBH I was enquiring as to the context of your post, i.e. nurses are nothing more than technicians.

 

You talk about the doctor putting their career on the line with every decision they make, the same is true with the staff nurse.

 

For example, if the the doctor prescribes a drug at the wrong dose and the nurse administers it, it is the nurse who is accountable for the patient receiving the wrong dose not the doctor.

 

The staff nurse cannot hide behind the doctors judgement if they know that judgement not to be sound.

 

the professional buck stops with the person who is delivering the point of care at that moment. The staff nurse will always be legally and professionally accountable for their actions and inactions.

 

Are you sure this is correct?. If a nurse should have the same level of expertise and knowledge and know what medicine and what dosage of medicine is appropriate for a patient, etc etc, why aren't they a doctor instead of a nurse? why is the doctor able to get away with medicine/dosage errors just because its generally not them that administers it?

[L00b]

TBH I was enquiring as to the context of your post, i.e. nurses are nothing more than technicians.

I didn't say that nurses are "nothing more than" technicians, or meant any demeaning of their role. By your own example below, they are technicians (bit in bold, 'administer drugs').

You talk about the doctor putting their career on the line with every decision they make, the same is true with the staff nurse.

Not to the same extent. Which is why professional indemnity insurance premiums for doctors are significantly higher than for nurses.

For example, if the the doctor prescribes a drug at the wrong dose and the nurse administers it, it is the nurse who is accountable for the patient receiving the wrong dose not the doctor. It's the same with drug interactions, the wrong drug prescribed for the situation and so on.

Do you really believe that a doctor prescribing the wrong drug or the wrong posology will not be made to shoulder any professional responsibility?

 

I suggest you have a chat with a GP or a consultant about the issue, tbh.

Another example, a nurse got a specialist registrar to review a patient over night. So this is a doctor that is basically waiting for a consultants post experience wise, someone who should be relied upon to know what they're doing. The Doctor reviewed the patient and came up with a very non-committal plan for the patient over night.

 

In the morning when the senior staff came on, it was the nurse who was disciplined for not being proactive in the care for the patient. She was told in no certain terms that she should have known that the advice offered by the specialist registrar wasn't appropriate and she should have gone over their head to the consultant, and to be honest the criticism was correct. The staff nurse cannot hide behind the doctors judgement if they know that judgement not to be sound.

Neither can the registrar hide behind the consultant. What consequences for that registrar if the nurse had followed protocol and gone to the consultant, do you think?

I'm not trying to provoke a them and us conflict between medical staff and nurses, what I am trying to suggest is that the professional buck stops with the person who is delivering the point of care at that moment. The staff nurse will always be legally and professionally accountable for their actions and inactions.

Neither am I, but in the interference created by TJC1's emotive posts about nurses, we're in danger of losing track of the point of isolated discussion, comparative pay levels, which was the context of my earlier posts and still is.

 

Delivering hands-on healthcare, short of diagnosing/prescribing/performing surgery, is a technical function. As with most technical professions, the more senior/experienced nurses get, the less hands-on and the more supervisory their job gets. There's nothing demeaning to the nursing profession in any of that, it's just descriptive, so not sure why you and TJC1 are so up in arms about me calling a nurse a technician.

 

I never realised there was such a stigma attaching to the word 'technician' in the UK, which seems to be the issue here. Inverted snobbery at play, looks like All becomes clearer now, no wonder tech-related skill levels and STEM grad numbers are in freefall.

I questioned that. Threw dummy out of pram.

 

Wasting your time. The guys totally clueless and actually rather rude if you ask me.

Where have I thrown the dummy out of the pram?

 

How am I being clueless and actually rather rude?

 

Could it simply be that I disagree with your opinions?

Edited August 11, 2015 by L00b