Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Nurses rage at 1% pay rise ‘insult’
PRESSURE from all directions was last night building on the Government over its pay snub to Britain’s NHS heroes.
And the explosive nationwide fury Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing was summed up in the powerful words of an exhausted intensive care nurse on a children’s ward.
“I have endured a hell of a lot more pain and suffering than my job title should allow,” said Louisa Carrington, 36.
“I’ve carried babies to the morgue, answered children who ask, ‘Am I going to die?’ and watched teenagers plan their funeral songs.
“I do it because I love children and I love my job. But I’m worth a lot more than 1%.
“I want to ask Boris Johnson what salary do you think someone looking after dying children deserves. How much is it worth to hold a dying child’s hand?”
Louise from Newcastle, whose NHS band 5 salary starts at £24,907 – slightly more than a QUARTER of an MP’s pay – spoke out as:
Backing mounts for a nurses strike – the first in England by the Royal College of Nursing – with a ballot as early as summer.
Warnings grow of a staff exodus on a day when 158 more Covid deaths were reported and more than 6,000 new cases.
The mum of the Covid nurse Johnson thanked for saving his life branded the proposed deal “pitiful”.
The Tories’ offer would add an average £3.50 a week to the pay of staff like Louisa.
Almost 1.5 million NHS workers, including midwives and health assistants, have been offered the 1% rise which No10 claims it is all it can afford.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has insisted the offer – equivalent to £500million – was based on “affordability”. He suggested NHS staff had been rewarded while other public sector workers endured pay freezes. Yet this Government has not blanched at wasting billions in taxpayers’ money on deals for Tory cronies and on buying unusable PPE.
The National Audit Office last year found £18billion was spent on contracts for firms – often without competition– early in the pandemic. And it was this week confirmed that the “world-beating” test and trace programme that under-performed so drastically will cost taxpayers at least £37billion. Adding insult to injury, Downing Street wasted £2.6million on renovations to hold White House-style press briefings.
Meanwhile the starting salary for most newly-qualified nurses is just £24,907. And the service’s lowest-paid full-time workers – such as housekeeping assistants and nursery assis
tants – start on just £18,005 per year. Low-paid NHS staff have already endured a 1% pay cap from 2013 to 2018, following a three-year freeze.
Then PM Theresa May agreed on a 6.5% pay rise spanning three years.
Now nurses want a 12.5% one-year deal, equivalent to £4.25billion. And they are prepared to dig in. The £35million strike fund assembled by the Royal College of Nursing is said to be the largest put together by a union.
In an emergency meeting, Dave Dawes, RCN chair of council, told nurses to prepare to be balloted on action “probably in July and August”.
Unions Unite and the GMB – which represent staff including ambulance staff porters and cleaners – are also considering doing the same.
NHS Providers, which represents health service employers, has accused ministers of backtracking on a 2.1%
pre-pandemic pay pledge. There are fears the snub could lead to thousands of NHS staff quitting.
Surveys suggest a fifth could leave after the pandemic – 300,000 people. There are already 100,000 vacancies.
Unite last night warned staff shortages could increase backlogs of nonCovid ops, such as cancer treatments. A total of 4.52million people are now on NHS waiting lists, already their longest for about 20 years
Assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail warned: “The NHS will be a pale shadow of the great health service we know if the insulting 1% is not revised upwards by ministers.
The Government pay proposal will be considered by the NHS Pay Review Board, who will then make a final recommendation.
Last night the Portuguese mum of the London St Thomas’s intensive care nurse Luis Pitarma – who Johnson credited with saving his life – said the 1% offer was “pitiful” and added: My son and his colleagues should be properly paid for their hard work and dedication in such difficult times.”
Celebrities yesterday joined the fury against the offer. Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville branded it “brutal”. Antony Cotton, who plays Corrie’s Sean Tully, said it was “despicable”.
Dame Donna Kinnair, RCN chief executive, said public support was “incredible”, adding: “Every MP will hear from their voters.”
Another 158 people with Covid-19 died in the UK yesterday, bringing the toll to 124,419. A further 6,040 cases were confirmed. But the figures represent big progress since January when 935 people a day were dying.