TINA DONNELLY

COLUMNIST

WITH a recent poll showing that nursing is the most trusted profession, it’s hard to believe that some nurses are forced to go to food banks because they simply don’t earn enough to make ends meet.

At the Royal College of Nursing in Wales we welcomed the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport Vaughan Gething’s commitment to raising the salaries of the lowest-paid healthcare staff to living wage level.

But are really disappointed that yet again, because of the UK Government’s 1% cap on public sector pay, that the overall wage rise for nurses was not even in line with inflation.

In fact it represents an overall decrease in annual salaries every year since 2010, a reduction of 14% in real terms.

The RCN in Wales wants to see investment in nursing. We want nurses to be valued and so we have launched our Leading Nursing Shaping Care campaign.

We do not accept the political decision to underfund the NHS or that there simply isn’t enough money to reward nurses for the vital job they do – the funding must be identified.

Claims that nurses earn £31,000 are wide of the mark with more and more evidence of nurses having to take second jobs to make ends meet coming to light every day.

At RCN Congress in Liverpool last month, we announced the results of our pay poll when members were asked three questions:

Did they wish to strike over pay? Did they wish to take action short of a strike, including working only contracted hours; demanding overtime pay and not undertaking the duties expected of a higher pay band; or to take no further action?

The result was overwhelming – more than 50,000 members voted and nine in 10 (91%) said they would support industrial action short of a strike and four in five (78%) said they were prepared to actually go on strike.

And in the light of this we plan a summer of action to demand that the Government scraps the cap.

We have appointed pay champions at each NHS site who are co-ordinating a concerted campaign to mobilise support from the public and to lobby newly-elected MPs to improve nurses’ pay and so safeguard patients.

This is how seriously members of the RCN take the issue of pay.

We believe that the decreasing salaries on offer has a direct link to the number of unfilled vacancies across the NHS – and we know that compromises patient care and safety and is why we worked so hard and so closely with the Welsh Government to develop the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016 that ensures a safe nurse-topatient ratio right across the NHS in Wales.

But this can only be achieved if there are enough staff employed.

As well as our battle to improve wages of nurses and health workers, the RCN is also demanding that EU nursing staff have the right to remain in Britain following the Brexit negotiations.

This is important because there are currently 37,000 nurses from the European Economic Area on the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s books currently.

While we want the UK government to invest in the domestic nursing workforce, we know this will take time and we cannot risk losing the skills and experience our European nursing colleagues bring to the NHS.

We also want to stop downbanding and role substitution – a common practice where unregistered staff are undertaking tasks that should be carried out by a registered nurse.

While we totally support the role of our valued healthcare support staff, who have a comprehensive training programme, let’s not put them or their patients at risk by asking them to undertake tasks beyond their level of training and professional competency.

There is clear evidence that degree-educated nurses have a positive impact on mortality rates.

Safe patient care depends on having a well-staffed, highly qualified workforce – without experienced staff to provide complex care patients’ wellbeing is being put at risk.

After all adequately rewarding and supporting our most trusted professionals is the obvious way forward to ensure all patient get the best outcomes possible.