How many nurses live in Dulwich?

[????]

Yes nurses are all angels.......Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[bignumber5]

You do require a BSc degree to become a nurse now

err... no. Fair few diploma courses still going, just as a point of accuracy.

I've always considered that the reason nursing pay will never, as buggie and a few others have alluded to, compare with managerial responsibilities in other sectors is that a human life and its quality are not, technically, worth anything. Those with responsibilites for a similar sized team in, for example, finance or marketing can easily demonstrate how much they are worth. Their team implements an initiative, it makes the company ?x, they are, as a team, worth a % of x. But a life and its quality are not quantifiable in the same way, so there is no x to allocate a % of. The same goes for teachers. Coppers are a tad better off for the addition of danger money.

Anyway, just to play devil's advocate in a practical sense for just a second: i think nurses deserving better money is frequently raised, but there are over 685,000 registered nurses in the UK. Where exactly would the money come from? Like all well heeled points of "fairness", the complainants rarely have a practical solution. There isn't one. you believe in the NHS, you accept that there is no more money. If you champion privitisation or similar, there's realistic wiggle room.

But that's a whole different issue/arguement/thread, and a bit ouroboros...

[dulwichmum]

??? Wrote:

Yes nurses are all angels.......Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Nurses don't want people to consider them to be angels sweetie, just the professionals that they are. If you had a cardiac arrest, would you like Barbara Windsor to mop your brow, or some kick ass nurse to resuscitate you?

Lovely Mr Keef Wrote:

> health care assistants with NVQs.

>

> What NVQs do they have? A lot of people scoff at

> NVQs, but actually the higher levels (4 & 5) are

> actually quite high qualifications.

Walk into a hospital off the street and they will employ you as a health care assistant in place of a nurse - all in the name of "skill mix". They will then encourage this new health care assistant to study up to NVQ level 2.

[????]

dulwivchmum...I think you've confused me with someone who wants to have a serious and worthy debate about Nurses' contributions to society

[Huguenot]

Well, look at me wading in like a right 'arris.

Salary-wise, WTF? I started on 9 grand in 1992 which inflation adjusted is 14 grand now. 20 grand? Great stuff, but you can stick the hoity-toity righteousness right where the sun don't shine. Most people would prostitute themselves for the opportunity. I'd have eaten my own doo doo for 20 grand. I ate pasta surprise for 5 years after college, quite similar. I actually ate it for breakfast too.

After 5 years only 22 grand? Shock horror! I'd have eaten my own little finger twice for 22 grand (inflation adjusted).

"Compared with other sectors'...? I mean WTF? WTF do nurses know about other sectors? The world doesn't revolve around pampered civil service jobs: most people work at Tescos on the till, or in the bakery, or driving cabs, or doing just about anything that doesn't pay over 20 grand a year.

The highest earning sector in Britain is 'health professionals'. That includes nurses. If doctors earn more, then go to medical school for 7 years.

9 miles? woooooo - ask a brickie's mate (from Penge).

Nurses take so much abuse and stress? Tell that to a sales rep. Tell that to Apex Man (another thread).

Nurses risk their lives like the police on a daily basis? Stop it, that's utter idiot. It's just BS. You don't trek from heavily armed Brixton house-party to heavily armed Brixton house-party asking the crackheads to turn the music down do you (please also refer to stress earlier)? I'm not denying it happens, but one exceptional moment is not a career.

Nurses look after people? Well tell you what, here's a nothing, most other people give a monkeys too! I'm not a nurse but I wouldn't let you die in the street either.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm enormously grateful that nurses have taken the time and mega-salary (see earlier) to look after me when I'm ill - but this put-upon braying righteousness is utterly undeserved. Get blinking real.

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Blimey O'Bleedin' Reilly Huguenot!

One question after reading that in its entireity.

What is "pasta surprise" and where can I buy it and do you recommend it?

(3 Questions actually:)))

[KalamityKel]

Strangely I do happen to agree with much of Huguenots points even though perhaps not with the same approach... it is a job after all...

[Huguenot]

;-) You know me, just playing the devil's advocate.

Pasta Surprise is Pasta Shock more like. It entails buying a 500g pack of the pasta of your choice on a Sunday afternoon, 1 can of tomatoes, 1 can of tuna and an onion. You cook it all up and then put it in a tupperware keg in the fridge.

You eat it every meal during your dead-end job under the gimlet eye of your w*nker manager until Thursday evening when you run out. On Friday you don't eat. On Saturday you down a bottle of Davenports best before going to the pub, because you can only afford 2 pints.

This is what most people in the UK do for several years after they leave college. Unless you're a nurse apparently. If you're a nurse you get subsidised housing, an extraordinary salary and get the chance to tell everybody else you're really hard done by and doing them a favour.

My Dad was a teacher. He does a great line in this hard-done by BS as well. I have to point out regularly to him that in order to get a pension the size of his when I retire I'd have to save a million freaking quid by the time I'm 65 (to pay for the annuity). Underpaid? Don't make me bloody laugh. How am I going to save a million quid? Either way, just don't rub my nose in it by pretending you've got a sh*t deal.

[david_carnell]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Well, look at me wading in like a right 'arris.

>

> Salary-wise, WTF? I started on 9 grand in 1992

> which inflation adjusted is 14 grand now. 20

> grand? Great stuff, but you can stick the

> hoity-toity righteousness right where the sun

> don't shine.

Have you considered the possibility that a newly qualified nurse has more social value than whatever job you performed when leaving college? Or that other market factors are at play? For example, perhaps not enough people want to or can be nurses, therefore the pay is higher. Perhaps your chosen profession on leaving college was very popular or particularly unskilled necessitating a low starting salary. If you could illuminate us all to your job at the time I'm sure we can dissect it in a similar way. And what was a nurses salary in 1992 anyway? Without that your argument is even more irrelevent.

> "Compared with other sectors'...? I mean WTF? WTF

> do nurses know about other sectors? The world

> doesn't revolve around pampered civil service

> jobs: most people work at Tescos on the till, or

> in the bakery, or driving cabs, or doing just

> about anything that doesn't pay over 20 grand a

> year.

Again, you've missed the point. A job on a till at tesco, serving pies in Greggs or driving a cab is not a skilled job (aside from the need for a driving license). They are unskilled, manual roles that require little training. I could do a decent job on a till in Tescos after half and hours induction; I doubt I'd do such a handy job in na hospital ward after a similar amount of time. Highly skilled nurses require higher salaries to make that training worthwhile. Why would anyone bother investing years to train as a nurse if they could earn the same money being a cabbie?

> The highest earning sector in Britain is 'health

> professionals'. That includes nurses. If doctors

> earn more, then go to medical school for 7 years.

And this figure also includes the endless administrators and managers lining the offices in local health trusts. I would advocate looking in that direction for job cuts and money saving rather than front line medical staff. In fact there is a good argument that given the size of the NHS (I believe the 2nd biggest employer in the world after the Indian railways) that managers and chief execs should be getting hugely inflated salaries. Compare to an equal position in the private sector. If you want a well-run health service we should be paying to attract the best candidates. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

> Nurses look after people? Well tell you what,

> here's a nothing, most other people give a monkeys

> too! I'm not a nurse but I wouldn't let you die in

> the street either.

But I know who I want to be there when I'm sick or collapsing in the street, and it's not you! It's a consultant, then a doctor, then a nurse, then a whole load of people with vague first aid knowledge followed, somewhere in the remote distance, by you - a random passer-by who cares (maybe) but knows nothing.

> I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm enormously

> grateful that nurses have taken the time and

> mega-salary (see earlier) to look after me when

> I'm ill - but this put-upon braying righteousness

> is utterly undeserved. Get blinking real.

Except it's not a mega-salary. It's marginally higher than the national average and for the level of training, expertise and demands of the job is hardly extortionate. Nurses are not angels but they deserve more of a break than you're giving them.

[dulwichmum]

Darling Huguenot,

"Salary-wise, WTF? I started on 9 grand in 1992"

In 1992, a newly qualified nurses wage was ?9,200 including London Weighting, but without enhancements for nights or weekend duties.

[Huguenot]

All good points Mr. Carnell.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, so much as highlight that it's unfair for nurses to consider themselves exploited matryrs.

The career you describe appears to be well structured, well trained, above average salaries in great demand from a grateful public. Most people don't have that opportunity.

[Huguenot]

Of course DM, but nurses have had pay rises since '97 of 25%, our well informed colleague DC accepts that the current offering is above average.

Since (as you observe) a nurse's salary at the time was higher than my own, you'd appreciate that I had little truck them telling me how hard-done-by they were.... and all that training you had, and subsidised digs - it's just perk after perk ;-)

I'm afraid those joining my own benighted profession can only expect starting salaries of 15k in London. They too would like training, to learn new skills, to have constructive management, a powerful sense of self-worth and job satisfaction.

These nurses seem to have it good!

[Marmora Man]

I'm afraid those joining my own benighted profession can only expect starting salaries of 15k in London. They too would like training, to learn new skills, to have constructive management, a powerful sense of self-worth and job satisfaction.

Just what is this benighted profession - then, perhaps, we can make a sensible comparison of the social benefit generated by you and your professional colleagues?

[david_carnell]

And just for data comparison:

If the majority of nurses now entering the profession require or have a degree, then graduate starting salaries can be found here. ?20-24k for a nurse (if that's what we're discussing) would seem to put them slap bang in the middle.

Any complaints?

[buggie]

Thank you D_C for being able to come up with reasoned arguments to Huguenot's posts - having read it I had to step away from the keypad of my laptop for fear of typing in anger. ::o

I don't think I've ever seen anything written by nurses declaring they be treated like higher class citizens/"angels"

Most of the time these sorts of comments are written by people who have needed to be cared/have watched their family be cared for and been happy with that care - normally just before they say how they couldn't do our job.

Despite the sentiment often behind them it normally makes me cringe because its just what I'm good at and enjoy.

I am happy with my salary and would never complain about it, however, to continue to interest people into joining the profession (especially when it becomes degree entry) I think this could be a problem - there are way less stressful ways of earning a living post-degree.

If we were walking round wearing tiara's and staring down our noses at white collar workers and the like then yes I think Huguenot's comments would hold more water, instead we're normally too busy to think of it.

[Mick Mac]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Pasta Surprise is Pasta Shock more like.

>

> You eat it every meal during your dead-end job

> under the gimlet eye of your w*nker manager until

> Thursday evening when you run out. On Friday you

> don't eat. On Saturday you down a bottle of

> Davenports best before going to the pub, because

> you can only afford 2 pints.

>

> This is what most people in the UK do for several

> years after they leave college. Unless you're a

> nurse apparently.

ARISE SIR HUGENOT - Well said mate - I agree wholeheartedly - I did not have a penny until i about 10 years after university and during this time I met a few nurses all of whom seemed to be earning more that me, not to mention just about everyone in the buliding trade also earning more than me too.

I guess the nurses may have an issue about their top end salary but as Hugenot says their salary early in their career is nothing to moan about, especially with accommodation pension etc.

I remember living in a flatshare in Finsbury Park cooking a huge chilli on Monday nights and seeing how many nights it might last me, making sandwiches for lunch etc, we have all been there.

[Huguenot]

There you go MM, you make my case for me..... ;-)

"we can make a sensible comparison of the social benefit generated by you and your professional colleagues"

So not only do me and my morally crippled colleagues not make as much money, but we're not contributing 'social benefit'.

These nurses are amazing! Rich, popular, and now as MM describes...righteous!

[david_carnell]

As you are currently based in Singapore, Huguenot, I fail to see any social benefit you're contributing to "Great Britain Plc"?

Would you care to enlighten me (or the mob of nurses currently baying for you)?

Or did you merely reap the benefits of a tax payer funded college education and then depart for a low income-tax expat haven in the sun? Still I'm sure you'll return in your dotage... Just in time for the NHS to pick up the bill for your cocktail-induced cirrocis(sp?). Thanks.

[Huguenot]

Ah, you too eh David? Quite right, I most certainly am not worthy. :'(

However, you do appear to be responding to criticisms I haven't made. I fail to see how anyone could scale the lofty moral heights of the nursing profession whether in the UK or abroad, and undoubtedly they deserve their above average salaries. I think nurses are great, much better than me. I myself languish in an execrable pit of moral destitution, and it's not even chez Brenda.

I feel should draw attention to the fact that I've only noted that with these considerable achievements nurses don't seem to be too badly off. I most manifestly have not suggested that they're not worth their salaries. However, it seems that the truth is the first victim in a pogrom.

It is indeed rather scary to hear the 'baying' of the nursing mob, and a reflection of their slashing fury that if I should dare to suggest that they seem comfortable then I'll be left bleeding by the roadside. First Quids and now me - it seems as though the nursing community is leaving a trail of crushed victims in their wake of their (apparently) insufficiently recognised profession. These must be mighty gripes to merit such attacks?

....and yet this brutal reality seems so at odds with the public persona of a caring sharing profession. Perhaps there is a Mr. Hyde behind our Staff Nurse Jekyll?

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Re: LOL Posts

Posted by: Huguenot 28 August, 2008 17:16

Never thought we'd get a Tony.London etc. in here, but...

Having only just noticed this "backhander" allow my belated riposte...

Never thought we'd get one of EDF's "own" Huguenot get a roasting from some of this fine fora's finest(try saying that wiv new teeth):))

p.s. Don't worry I'm singlehandedly keeping the baying mob at bay at The Ports and Airports:)

[Marmora Man]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> There you go MM, you make my case for me..... ;-)

>

> "we can make a sensible comparison of the social

> benefit generated by you and your professional

> colleagues"

>

> So not only do me and my morally crippled

> colleagues not make as much money, but we're not

> contributing 'social benefit'.

>

> These nurses are amazing! Rich, popular, and now

> as MM describes...righteous!

I thought I was merely enquiring about your profession.

I have worked in healthcare related sectors for 17 years. Nurses are most certainly not Angels - nor are Doctors Gods. I don't believe their pay is too high and have, in my time, negotiated with the RCN over nurse pay demands.

I would still like to know what your profession is - just so you know I started out as an NHS manager, a most reviled species, and I agree with comments on another thread that NHS managers could usefully be culled to reduce costs to the NHS and country.

[Huguenot]

Advertising MM, I'm the lowest of the low ;-)

[Marmora Man]

Hugenot,

You're right, possibly your profession is possibly rated the same as or even perhaps somewhat below an NHS Manager and possibly newspaper reporters. Without being too disrespectful to your chosen way of earning a living I can conceive of a future without advertising, but not one without nursing.

Nurses spend three years obtaining a degree level training and are then paid circa ?24K to look after others. I have no idea how advertising people are trained but those I've met in different marketing agencies don't appear to necessarily have many formal qualifications, beyond experience, to qualify them for the role. So a starting salary of circa ?16K whilst training "on the job" seems about right. Market rules and all that - if you had wanted to earn a nurses salary then there are usually plenty of nursing vacancies for those prepared to do the training.

However, you may wish to disabuse me of this view?

[Keef]

Again, Huguenot never once suggested that nurses don't deserve every penny they are paid. He just suggested that perhaps they're not quite as hard done by as some would have us believe.

I agree.

*performs Starsky & Hutch style roll over bonnet of nearby car, and croutches behind to avoid onslaught of verbal gunfire from the hoods with the red cross gang*

Edited because by leaving out a "not", I was saying exactly the opposite of what I meant to say. Doh!!!

[Cassius]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Advertising MM, I'm the lowest of the low ;-)

Come on - what about Estate Agents, Bank Managers and BB contestants. I'd say in advertising you are well up the feed chain from that lot.