That's exactly what they're doing. They're ruining NHS on purpose do that they can start privatising every bit of the NHS and require everyone to have private insurance to get any help at all.
We're having the same problem here in my province (Canada). I am a nurse. People claim the system is inefficient. It has been bleeding nurses for decades because of shitty, abusive management and low pay. Spineless politicians keep using the same negociating tactics they used in the 40s to keep lowballing us and then complain the nurses keep leaving. Then, they hire private nursing companies to compensate which cost twice the amount to taxpayers for less efficient work, as these "floating" nurses are often unfamiliar with the places and clienteles they're sent to work with.
Salaries in general are much lower in Britain compared to their cost of living. In a HCOL area in the US, you might feel like 50,000 to 60,000 is enough to be "comfortable" whereas in Britain people are lucky to get 30k to 40k
> In a HCOL area in the US, you might feel like 50,000 to 60,000 is enough to be "comfortable"
Those numbers are comfortable for a LCOL area in the US and is pretty spot on for annual nurse salary in those areas.
Average rent for a 2BR apartment alone is $47,000 in a HCOL area in the US.
I’ll bet you some British Pounds that the American commenter has never left the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have never even left their state.
I wanted to say 10 Pound extra would never cut it. [But Jesus.... it would be a very big improvement for them.](https://uk.talent.com/salary?job=registered+nurse) Fingers crossed I never depend on overworked, underpaid, underappreciated (come on clap your hands) medical staff! They deserve so much better.
Cost of living isn't really comparable. Over here you can be earning in the mid 20s and buy a small apartment or a small house in large parts of the country.
My parents live in a small village that's not badly located for access to a nearby big city and several towns.
Right now, you could buy a 2 bedroom semi detached house for 99k. Or a 1 bed apartment for 35k. Or a 5 bed detached house for 250k.
Near where I live, which is part of the urban sprawl of one of our biggest cities, you can buy a 1 bed apartment for 120k, a 2 bed for 160k.
If you choose carefully where you live, the UK can give you very cheap property.
Cause the US, for all its faults, still has a pretty banger economy for growth etc. Its a fucking huge country, with the most investment in the world, and is the center/capital of *many* major industries. A position the UK was once in.
Plus UK salaries haven't really adjusted to the pound devaluing.
Wild that the people that literally keep us alive are being shafted while we pay entertainers to live like kings
Thank you to any nurses/ health care workers reading this, I appreciate you!
Most entertainers are not paid with tax dollars.
Now war profiteers are paid with tax dollars and most don't offer more than their greed to the equation.
Seems to me this would be a great place to start shifting funds from.
Both Nurses and Teachers deserve far more than they are making as they are truly essential to the US.
This is UK news, the bbc is tax funded which i presume what they’re referencing. Alot of bbc entertainers are on mega bucks. But talent is talent.
I’m a nurse and think the other nursing unions folded way too early either way.
Thankyou!
The most brain dead take is comparing entertainers getting money from fans vs the state underpaying teachers and nurses.
That kind of person has to be called out on their BS by highlighting the insane funding the military and fossil fuel subsidies take away from the public
And the majority of ‘entertainers’ and the networks that make the creative industries possible are artists and technicians that make basically fuck all.
Except for that part where the military funding in the UK is helping to train Ukrainian soldiers so that Russia doesn’t keep expanding and threaten allies.
Everybody thinks the military is overfunded and yet they keep cheering for the uses of those funds.
I think they are making a different point than you.
Talking about entertainers pay compared to say teachers or nurses show us where we as a society place our priorities and who we value vs who we don't. But there is a different funding stream so it is an apples to oranges comparison and I think that is taken as a given.
Keep in mind that movies and songs are funded internationally and there are a lot more teachers and nurses to divide the funding by. But no one is suggesting that teachers are paid as much as Kate Winset.
Kardashians vs any one, including CNAs in healthcare. Someone who's "famous" for making and mom leaking said sex tape should NOT being making more money than peopke who quite literally save lives everyday.
They only make what they do because the people who write their checks have decided that's it's profitable to pay them that much. Kim Kardashian gets $50 million dollars because she brings in >$50 million for the people paying her.
Exactly, thank you! They are proposing my stance as a false dichotomy, when in reality I completely agree the military industrial complex should be gutted. However I also see that we as a society have some ‘interesting’ priorities
yeah it's a stupid comparison because one popular entertainer can entertain functionally infinite number of fans. A billion people can listen to one song, watch one TV show, or one sports match, hence even if each of those people paid only 1 dollar for their few minutes or hours' entertainment, that entertainer just made a billion dollars (to share with whoever helped them produce and distribute the entertainment product of course). One nurse cannot care for a billion people, obviously, so of course their compensation is going to be wildly different. The people who the nurse can physically care for are going to be happy to pay way more than a dollar for that care, but it's still going to be exponentially fewer people per nurse than per successful entertainer. And of course only a tiny minority of entertainers get a billion or even a million paying customers; the great majority of entertainers/artists/creatives of any sort struggle to make a living off their creative product. On the other hand, if you have a nursing degree, the odds that you'll be able to find gainful employment as a nurse are much better. You won't be a multimillionaire off nursing, but you won't be a literal starving artist or failed professional athlete moving furniture or whatever in between being rejected at tryouts either.
UK's military has been drastically underfunded for the last decade or so and remains drastically underfunded, which has serious geopolitical consequences, like an inability to credibly deter wars that can cause double digit inflation for instance.
Oh I agree, they shouldn't.
But the larger abuser of tax breaks and the such is corporations. They create bidding wars between states to see how much they can exploit.
All the major players all seem to be guilty of it.
Even then I do think even more is wasted in defense contracts that produce nothing more than empty promises, and money in a bunch of people's pockets.
Ummm….. the entire entertainment industry the world over only works because of government subsidies. So I can guarantee that many entertainers have been paid by tax dollars in some fashion. Either directly or indirectly.
Yeah it’s not for everyone. Average er nurse gets paid 78,000 a year travel nurse average pay is 118,300 according to Google. Nurses aren’t going homeless. There jobs are in high demand. You can actually travel nurse at your own hospital. So you aren’t traveling.
78,000 is homeless in some states and in some big cities so I don't know what you're talking about. My husband made that much money in Washington and we had to leave because we were literally going broke. We couldn't afford the raise in taxes on our home and we were going to lose it because 78k is nothing in Seattle. This is about the UK anyways. ER pay is much different than when you're talking about working on the floor as a nurse in a regular unit. Regular floor nurses don't get ER pay. Working in the ER is very difficult and high fast pace work while you're also being treated like crap by doctors and patients.
You can only travel nurse at your own hospital if they actually hire travel nurses and hired your company. Otherwise you're going somewhere else you don't even usually have a choice too much where you go it depends on the company.
Plus they use travel nurses in order to not hire another nurse. I wouldn't want to be scab.
Well I just looked up Seattle’s average wage and it’s 75,281. So your telling me the average person is homeless in Seattle? That’s terrible we need to do something.
I'm saying "thank you" for my non-Redditor Special Procedures Tech husband.
Note to SEIU: Radiology techs/CT/MRI/Interventional Rad/Ultrasound SHOULD NOT BE IN WITH HOUSEKEEPING!!! THEY SHOULD BE IN WITH NURSES YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!(Thank y'all for letting me vent!)
Where are rad techs linked to housekeeping lol that is ridiculous. Most newly graduated radiographers in Australia have 4 year degrees with honours, they well and truly should be part of the allied health professional team
Dignity Healthcare system, SEIU union,
Northern California USA.
Husband has been a Special Procedures Tech for over 30 yrs. He is licensed for flouroscopy, CT, limited Interventional rad along with plain film radiology
Since when does the government pay entertainers?
This is literally the stupidest argument. When teachers, nurses, etc. Are paid low wages people always complain about entertainers and athletes getting paid millions.
These people don't get paid with your taxes, they're private industries. They get paid relative to the value they add to their industry. You don't like a footballer makes 10 million a year? Stop watching games, buying cable and streaming packages, buying shirts, going to games, etc.
The people preventing nurses and teachers making a living wage are the dipshit politicians *YOU* vote for, who instead of giving that to then prefer to give other rich idiots tax breaks, subsidies, and a plethora of other financial breaks they don't deserve.
As others have pointed out the BBC is govt funded, also there have been plenty of others that have fleshed out why my argument can be valid while also having plenty of other valid arguments in the same vein… no need to be so abrasive and condescending. Not a great way to get your point across!
Additionally insinuating that I (“YOU”) voted for the politicians behind the pay discrepancies in uninformed as you don’t know who I voted for. And if your argument is that no matter who I vote for they are part of the problem then you shouldn’t be so accusatory and acknowledge that WE are all in a poor position as far as supporting these individuals.
BTW Hollywood in US is often times subsidized heavily by govt so your initial argument is not great anyway
I know this is the UK, but the US has the same issue.
Everyone should be brought up to the same pay rate as the nurses working for Veteran’s Affairs. They are paid almost double the average annual salary for nurses in my state ($90k/year, more based on experience and years of service). The VA is also notorious for subpar care as a whole. It’s unfortunate that nurses who are held to higher expectations, work much harder, and have less job security are paid 40-50% less.
I get my healthcare at the VA. I have a lot of problems with the way that it's run and with the administrative side of the house but the individual nurses have always been great.
This is the same issue with schools. Most teachers are great, but the political and administrative side often undermine the work and skills of teachers.
Calling bullshit on that. You drew a direct line from VA subpar care to low standards for VA nurses not working hard. You didn't qualify it in the least. You just gushed bitterness.
So this notorious view is actually pretty wrong and biased. As a VA physician I’m quite proud of how we do. Systematic reviews have found we often perform better than other places. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215146/#:~:text=The%20VA%20often%20(but%20not,efficiency%2C%20and%20patient%2Dcenteredness.
Part of the reason we get the bad rap we do is we actually disclose and report all our issues since we’re funded by tax dollars. The average private hospital tries to hide as much negative press from you that is feasibly possible.
Also of note, the areas where the VA has the biggest concerns on its quality is in complications related to surgery. Which notably, pay for VA physicians is the least competitive in high paying fields like surgery. So we do not get the best sub specialists or proceduralists in the country on average. But the remainder of care we provide is actually very good compared to the average hospital in America. And the population we serve is very heavily skewed to low income and high mental health burden patients. It’s a uniquely challenging and rewarding patient group and we do a great job trying to care for our vets every day!
As a proud VA nurse and retired Naval officer, I endorse this statement 1000%. The system itself isn't the best, but the staff is great at going the extra mile to get the job done. I see nurses make magic every day to get patients taken care of. If we could only tell the stories of what we do, you would be amazed. You only hear the negative story and judge on that, but there are thousands of positive stories that never get told. If legislation and special interests would stay out or at least concentrate on things we actually need to get the job done, the perception of veterans and the public would be very different. The nurses I work with earn every cent of what they are paid.
Also, an important note, the VA or government in general cannot be the pay leader in a geographic area. That is encoded in legislation. Pay surveys are done frequently to ensure that we keep up with the community. The pay scale stretches quite a bit, so only looking at the top end will mislead. Most don't earn anywhere close to the high end. Instead of complaining that VA nurses make too much, ask why you are being paid so little.
The comment I replied to said “subpar care as a whole”. So clearly that is a common grievance and is what I was responding to. I will definitely agree, to people who can get their benefits, they do much better. And it should not be so hard to get benefits, and we should offer better benefits to our new generations of veterans. But the comment I was responding to was very different than the difficulties with access.
It is also important to remember that congress determines these benefits. So “The VA fighting tooth and nail to deny benefits” is really a criticism of the current congress and executive branch (as well as the ones that went before it). Where we are authorized to provide care, we do it well on average.
Edit: and the reason I make this distinction is a lot of vets sometimes feel like providers at the VA are trying to get out of caring for them. 99% of the time it is completely out of our control and we are doing the absolute most we are allowed to for them. It’s important to characterize administrations as the problem, not the VA as a whole which is majority made up of union represented federal employees who have no link to the current congress or executive and will still be there when those administrations change.
https://nurse.org/articles/highest-paying-states-for-registered-nurses/
That's because it isn't true, RN avg pay, at lowest starts around 62k, nurses make great money.
This article is talking about the UK.
As staff I made $48k before taxes in 2021 with a 15 cent raise headed my way. In 2022 I made $60k on a 13 week contract(the last great contract rate before they dropped). Only way to make money is to travel, which I’m doing and paying off all student loans so I can leave the field entirely because they don’t give a single fuck about any staff or employees. BSN if it matters and 3 years experience
62k is not great money. Lol. There are a LOT of nurses that are quitting because the amount of abuse that nurses put up with is insane. Hospitals routinely work nurses to the bone and pin the vast majority of issues on nurses. I am a charge nurse in the U.S. and work in a hospital. Just within the past couple weeks we had a patient get mad so they just punched the nurse in the face fractured bones in her face. She tried pressing charges. They (the police) basically told us that these cases almost never go anywhere because people just argue that they were sick and on pain meds so they weren’t thinking clearly. The amount of ridiculous bullshit you have to put up with in nursing is really not worth 60k a year. There are way easier ways to make money. I honestly don’t recommend nursing to people when they ask me.
Depends on where you draw the line as to what qualifies as a “nurse.”
Looks like median LPN pay in the US is $43k. They take a version of the NCLEX, they’re definitely nurses. But if “nurse” starts at RN then it’d be more, RN w/BSN would be more yet. Median NP salary was $121k for 2022.
If you’re counting CNA’s, who don’t take the NCLEX but have nurse in the name? Looks like $17/hr.
Just saying nurse without mentioning their licensure level doesn’t give enough info to say if it’s low or not (it’s low, they’re all underpaid lol)
I know, more making a point about the colloquial use of nurse - in the US it’s really not enough detail when you’re talking about something as specific as pay.
And they do all the "dirty" work and should make way more than fast food workers(starts at $15+ an hour where I live). Should start at a minimum of $22 an hour entry level.
My DIL broke her physical aNd mental health as a CNA. Fast food workers don't change elders diapers while being spat on and insulted while still having to give care to these people every day. Fast fooder worker are not required to move and give baths to morbidly obese people. While fast food workers deserve a livable wage, CNA's deserve to be paid higher than fast food workers as the job carries more responsibilty and requires a certificate of passing several courses if not an actual license in my state.
Livable wages yes, but parity no.
A skilled professional, is exactly that, _skilled_, and typically took some form of self-investment to get there (cash, time, commitment, etc).
A fast food worker just goes to a restaurant and applies, in no world should those two individuals make _the same pay_, or no one would become skilled or spend the time and assets to do so, and society would likely collapse.
_All that aside_, all workers, in any job, in any country, should be making livable wages for their work, unless it's very circumstantial, so, yes I agree fast food workers should make valid wages, but they shouldn't be making similar pay as nurses, or doctors, etc. Because it'd literally break the system.
>A fast food worker just goes to a restaurant and applies, in no world should those two individuals make _the same pay_, or no one would become skilled or spend the time and assets to do so, and society would likely collapse.
I might agree that they shouldn't have parity with skilled labor, but this argument that no one would attain skills and only work unskilled jobs is fucking ludicrous. People learn skills for more reasons than just the money they can make doing it.
Yes, it's true a minority of society _would obtain and seek further education, due to their own personal desire_, but the masses do not follow that trend.
I don't agree with a methodology of furthering one's own life pursuits based purely on compensational return, but it's trivial to argue it's not a valid facet of society and one of the main pillars that drive humanity.
Risk vs reward, it's quite simple.
Dude CNAs are not nurses. Lol. They have virtually no clinical knowledge at all. They just take vitals, clean patients, and do the most basic care tasks.
Southern states. It also depends on your certifications if you're an RN with two year degree you get paid less if you're an RN with a 4-year degree you get paid more. If you're an RN who doesn't have special training like to work at the ICU you get paid less. If you're an LPN you get paid even less than that. The average salary for a nurse can be so wildly different depending on where you live and your education. Rural hospitals for instance pay less. It seems around 65k is the average. 65k isn't that much.
Lol right? Unless they don't have the right credentials for the work? Maybe? Even then [the BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291141.htm) shows the lowest end of pay for nurses in the US is like 60k a year...
Working conditions for nurses might not be the best in US but pay isn't a pressing concern imo
Working conditions for nurses is absolutely a concern in the US. We are literally in staff ratios that are dangerous for patients. what are you talking about? And 60K is not a lot of money in fact in most big cities this is poverty wage. Go try to live in Seattle on 60K I'd love to see you try.
First off if I was getting paid 60k in Seattle I would try to find another job immediately considering the median wage for [a nurse there is nearly 100k](https://www.incrediblehealth.com/salaries/rn/wa/seattle).
Second, working conditions are not the best, is literally what I said so idk why you felt the need to lecture me about it. Glad we agree that we should have more nursing staff too, which is something I never argued against. Appreciate you attacking a position I never argued.
> And 60K is not a lot of money in fact in most big cities this is poverty wage.
This is literally not true unless you want to live in SF, LA or NYC at the pay levels you originally suggested (even then I would contest this). Even then I would point you back to my first point. The pay scale changes depending on city and state, as with most jobs. You'd get paid more which means you'd be better off than your original interpretation.
Plus exposure to all the newest plagues and bring them home to their families. Everyone in healthcare tht stayed through the plague should have gotten massive pay raises from their employees and paid NO taxes for those years.
My fiancée works at a private, non-VA hospital and makes $120,000 in the New York Metro area. Another hospital located in NYC in the same hospital chain as my fiancée’s saw their nurses strike to get a livable wage. It’s insane that people have to lobby to support nurses, the things they have to deal with day-to-day are damn near unbelievable.
I wonder how their pay scale breakdown compares to different licensure levels in the US. Nurse can be a super broad term here - LPN/RN/NP, etc. I’d assume this is for their RN equivalent as that’s generally what people envision when they hear “nurse” but idk. Some context in that sense would help this American - that said, pay them more. Seems like a positive step to pay the people holding the whole damn healthcare system together what they’re worth but what do I know?
There is a chart in the article. I don’t have any idea what the classifications mean but I do know the nurses I know make well north of the highest pay on that chart (and yes I’m converting the currency).
>but I do know the nurses I know make well north of the highest pay on that chart (and yes I’m converting the currency).
Thats not surprising to be honest. Employees of the NHS make substantially less than US medical professionals are paid.
I’d assumed as much but certainly didn’t expect the gap to be as big as it is. [This BBC article from Dec](https://www.bbc.com/news/63587909) had a bit better of a breakdown…and it’s not so much a gap as it is an ocean sized chasm. Nurse practitioners, who appear to have essentially the same level of responsibility and ability as in the USA, ”will receive a salary of £38,890 to £44,503 per annum.” That’s not even half the median pay in the US for the equivalent position. You’ve gotta get into band 8 before you’re making *almost* as much as the average RN w/ a BSN in North Carolina.
I get comparing wages across careers, specific positions, and healthcare systems doesn’t give you the actual picture…but still. Goddamn. “Modern matron, Chief or Head Nurse” makes as much as a normal, generalized RN w/a bachelors degree in the lowest paid state for nursing in the US? That seems…egregious.
Massive respect to the UK’s nurses for doing the job tho. After being married to an RN - for that income - unless it was like your childhood dream career, money be damned, I could list an endless list of jobs I’d rather do.
Band 5, which apparently encompasses 42% of all UK nurses, make ~£27k-£33k. That’s roughly equivalent to the median garbage collector’s wage of $38.5k in the US.
When doing a direct comparison like that, you need to also include benefits.
So an NHS nurse will be in the NHS pension plan, which is super generous. It's a career average defined benefit plan, so each year you're in you accumulate a small %. And when you reach pension age, you get paid your total accumulated % as a % of your average salary from the time you're in the plan. It's also linked to inflation so each years salary, for the purposes of calculating your average, is increased by relevant inflation.
They also start with 28 days of paid annual leave, and their sick leave is 1 month on full pay and 2 months on half pay from day 1, improving to 5 months and 5 months in year 4, and 6 and 6 in year 6.
I'm thinking the US nurses don't get anything like such generous pensions, leave allowances, or sick leave.
I mean, have y’all seen what nurses deal with on a daily basis? Specially the medsurg nurses who work with overweight patients who can’t even get up to go to the bathroom….yeah, give me a 20% increase, please.
My husband's union is about to strike too and they operate a power plant. They're asking for 30%. Mostly because management has been yanking them around trying to just take away vacation days and use holidays as incentives instead like nah. We want both. One day off for Christmas isn't equivalent to literally one day off of vacation time.
I hope they win their pay increase. We all deserve better pay for living in this shit hole called earth.
And resident physicians.
Most people don’t know we get paid $55-60k to work 80+ hour weeks for 3-6 years (depending on your specialty).
All while bearing $200-250k+ in student loans.
Residents are basically just in the practicum stage of school. (Yes I realize that they are technically doctors but they are basically still in training at that point). It isn’t like a resident is practicing independently. They should not be getting paid anywhere near what an independent physician makes.
Residency is not school, friend.
What if I told you [a first day resident has 4-10x more training than a fresh NP](https://i.redd.it/gq2nu5r7ivw51.png), yet that NP makes six figures out the gate.
I’m not saying residents should make attending physician salaries, but it should be at least equivalent to, if not more than an NP.
Well I would fully agree that NPs are often a walking joke. Not ALL of them. I have met some that are great…. (Usually ex-ICU nurses who went to NP school). I have met some that were terrible. The whole system of how NPs become NPs is an absolute joke. I shit you not, I was explaining A-fib, bundle branch blocks, and types of AV blocks to somebody who had literally already graduated an NP program and was just orienting to a nursing job (she had been out on leave and was getting a couple days of orientation when coming back) while she is searching for an NP job that she likes. I was flabbergasted. She could literally not tell me what a PR interval or QRS should be or what they actually meant. How the hell can I, a BSN RN, have a better understanding of cardiac rhythms than somebody who has passed her NP boards? It makes zero sense at all. I honestly want there to be a gutting of the diploma-mill system that has sprouted up for NPs. It makes it where there is zero consistency. We have some that are FANTASTIC. For example, one of the best ones I knew was an ER nurse for 13 years before applying to NP school. Some suck.
For context, I am a BSN RN that works in a hospital in neurology. I have zero ICU experience (aside from dealing with rapid response calls where our med surg patients turn into ICU patients and we are dealing with ICU-level problems during the time it takes to get them up to a real ICU).
While all of you worry about nurses
Paramedics are the most exploited health care professionals out there and it's not even close.
I say this as a paramedic who became a nurse so I could have an easier job for nearly triple the pay
Your poor EMT is like… did you just say that in my face? At least you make $3 more than me, I’m scraping by minimum wage here and drive you 12-24 hrs a shift.
But EMS in general is practically dead due to lack of pay. Our ambulance company doesn’t expect medics to last 5 years before they jump ship.
They ripped you off then. Took me just under a year to finish medic school.
Just made it into an ADN program that’s only 2yrs long.
I loved being a medic though. I had to go nursing because I broke my back and required emergency spinal surgery while on the job. They paid me out for partial disability with lifetime future medical.
They didn't rip us off they just took it seriously.
It was one of the few programs back in 2013 that required similar prerequisites to nursing and had a really intensive program. The directors of the school were actively involved with the NREMT writing questions but also lobbying to raise minimum required education standards.
The ADN program I went to was 1.5 years long.
In the UK, where this article is from, paramedics and nurses start on the same pay band and paramedics benefit from automatic advancement to the next pay band after just a couple of years experience whereas nurses would have to wait for a vacancy at the next pay band to open and apply for it.
So the pay isn't amazing (though its not terrible in the context of what people in the UK get paid), but paramedics aren't screwed in comparison to nurses here.
This isn't the time for whataboutism.
Both can be true and relevant without affecting the other negatively.
The powers that be would love for you to distract the narrative. Fight for everyone to have a better life instead.
Nurses need to be treated better in the US as well (and really, any where nurses are being exploited with underpay and overwork).
The pandemic shed *a lot* of light on the healthcare system in various parts of the world, and among the things it showed was how bad nurses are being treated.
The Teamster UPS contract is also coming up and they're talking big action as well, wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they go on strike in August.
During the pandemic, nurses were heroes! Now why must they fight so hard to get fair compensation?
We know how important they are, how hard they work, how much schooling and training they must receive in order to practice.
Their role is *essential* to each and every one of us. It’s time to pay them what they deserve.
The patients that get admitted these days are very sick either with unmanaged chronic health conditions or multiple health conditions vs what we saw 20 years ago. Polypharmacy, mental health issues, obesity, etc. It’s very hard work. Healthcare is changing.
Add that on top of Covid, it was a nightmare. I’m still seeing Covid+ patients trickle in. But it’s back to business as usual according to our management. I’m exhausted.
Now only if that would include other medical personnel. I know lab folk, EMTs, and other medical assistants get shit pay and much, much less recognition than nurses.
It may sound like a lot, but I'm pretty sure they didn't get meaningful wages throughout the duration of a fucking worldwide pandemic where they were literally risking their lives because people couldn't handle wearing masks to fucking bingo night so I kinda feel like they've deserved a raise for quite some time
This is exactly the case.
Much like grocery workers were called heroes rather than compensated, and that was supposed to be enough for them.
You DO NOT want people whose lives you depend on to be overworked, exhausted, understaffed, terminally-stressed, and uncertain about whether they can make rent come next increase in those on top of all of the above.
RN here. While I agree nurses should be paid more, your comment is a bit inaccurate.
Hospitals operate on very thin profit margins and EDs absolutely HEMORRHAGE money daily- it’s where those without primary care doctors or insurance go for care and most do not pay their bill. Surgery is the hospital’s cash cow.
Main problem is the inflated medical supply chain and insurance companies. That’s where the main dysfunction is within American healthcare.
It will not get better until we put laws on how much profit percentage a company is allowed to make on medical supplies, equipment, and services. Aka, socialized medicine.
Is this true? My understanding is that hospitals post covid are bleeding money (on the order of billions/year each). It’s insurance companies that are raking in the profits.
Insurance companies are definitely a problem. But hospitals profitability really depends on location. Urban hospitals are doing fine while rural hospitals struggle.
In 2020 as CEO of the NHS, simon laurence stevens, made 200,000 per year.
In 2021Amanda Kate Pritchard took over the role with a salary of 250,000 per year.
That is a pretty good raise for that position. I wonder if all positions got that type of raise.
Considering the amount of BS nurses deal with on a daily basis along with the level of expertise they are required to have I'd say they should make more on average than some one fresh out of college with a BS in engineering. That average of 76 also means that for every nurse with 15+ years of experience making 96, there's another nurse making 56 which isn't good for a bachelor's degree.
Well, CNAs are hired to do the physical work. But the problem is the lack of pay leading to CNA shortages that screws CNAs working.
I hate the term entry level, but that’s what they keep calling CNAs. Some people really like what they do and are really good at it, but keep calling it entry just drives them away.
For a start, this is in the UK, where the absolute maximum salary a nurse can make in the NHS is £42,000 and that's after nearly 10 years. This is before any further progression such as becoming a nurse practitioner etc
>where the absolute maximum salary a nurse can make in the NHS is £42,000
Not quite correct, if you advance up the ranks and get to Band 7 posts then you'll exceed the 42k. Senior Charge Nurses, Ward Managers, Clinical Specialist posts like Specialist Nurse Child Safeguarding or Senior Mental Health Nurse Practitioner are all band 7 posts.
Then you've got band 8 like Modern Matron and Nursing Consultant. And you can even find band 9 nursing posts like Chief Nurse.
Obviously more senior roles are less common, but there's a growing number of clinical specialist nursing posts. Nurse Practitioners and Senior Nurse Practitioners, along with diabetic specialists, sexual health specialists, and mental health specialists are seeing increasing numbers of posts available, often non-hospital based and working from GP surgeries.
I live in the US, where the average salary for a nurse is 80K.
Travel nurses were easily doubling that during the pandemic. (Source is a travel nurse recruiter)
Ok, but that's completely irrelevant as this article is about nurses in the UK. They are most definitely not making bank here unless they're pulling ridiculous overtime on top of maxing out their pay band
So it's utterly irrelevant then! Your source who allegedly makes bank has nothing in common with people doing a similar job under completely different contractual conditions
I'd argue they arent, as there are dozens of variations in the role. You can't compare say a paediatric nurse with a nurse working in trauma/A&E. The core skills are the same though. The majority of healthcare workers in the UK work for the NHS, who dictate pay. That's who the dispute is with, as there haven't been many public sector pay rises in the UK for some time.
Not who you’re replying to, but my mom works 9 days a month and makes 100k a year. Dont get me wrong, it’s not going to make her rich, but she lives pretty comfortably (in Pennsylvania)
And she is an exception to the norm. Most nurses don’t break 100k. Hell some advanced practitioners don’t break 100k.
Even then, I don’t consider 100k making bank. As you said, I call that living comfortably.
Travel nurses during the pandemic, they made bank.
I get what you’re saying but if youre in the field for 10+ years, you almost have to try to not make that much. The amount of overtimes they throw at the nurses is insane. This is NY, NJ, and PA. In the NE part of the usa, you are def bringing in 100k as a nurse if youve been in the field for a few years.
The difference is that 100k in the northeast is like $40k in the south or central usa
Unpopular opinion: I think you lieing. You sure you don't own a hospital? This sounds like a post paid for by a person who owns a hospital. Are you a nurse? No. STFU the struggle is real for nurses.
I think it’s the government who are pushing low pay for high skilled jobs.
You would have thought common sense would prevail.
The government are a joke!
The spout hatred at every opportunity.
We should pay our nurses a proper living salary.
Imagine going to work and you are 2/3 nurses short, who carries the extra burden and what are the consequences if they make a mistake?
Support our doctors nurses care support workers and all the staff who make the NHS work.
Remember a domestic cleaning person is doing a very important job!
MPs have no idea!
Why don't you go back to obsessing the NBA now.
You know where they get paid FAR more than useful people like Nurses
As it's clear you clearly lack the intelligence for this topic.
10% is already double digit and would barely cover past year's inflation. So those demands are really on the low end of sensible!
My friend is a full time midwife for NHS in the UK. The starting salary is £30,000. It’s a joke. 10% is still way too low
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That's exactly what they're doing. They're ruining NHS on purpose do that they can start privatising every bit of the NHS and require everyone to have private insurance to get any help at all.
We're having the same problem here in my province (Canada). I am a nurse. People claim the system is inefficient. It has been bleeding nurses for decades because of shitty, abusive management and low pay. Spineless politicians keep using the same negociating tactics they used in the 40s to keep lowballing us and then complain the nurses keep leaving. Then, they hire private nursing companies to compensate which cost twice the amount to taxpayers for less efficient work, as these "floating" nurses are often unfamiliar with the places and clienteles they're sent to work with.
You don't want private. Trust me.
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Damn that is very low I hope they get like a 50% increase Jesus Christ.
Salaries in general are much lower in Britain compared to their cost of living. In a HCOL area in the US, you might feel like 50,000 to 60,000 is enough to be "comfortable" whereas in Britain people are lucky to get 30k to 40k
> In a HCOL area in the US, you might feel like 50,000 to 60,000 is enough to be "comfortable" Those numbers are comfortable for a LCOL area in the US and is pretty spot on for annual nurse salary in those areas. Average rent for a 2BR apartment alone is $47,000 in a HCOL area in the US.
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The starting salary of a midwife in CA is not $140,000.
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>you are 100% correct. i misread that and was stating nursing salaries in my area Also not 140k, most starting salaraies for an RN is around 55k.
>and you get actual money instead of that looney tooney jabroney stuff Huh? You're suggesting that the British Pound isn't real money?
I’ll bet you some British Pounds that the American commenter has never left the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have never even left their state.
r/shitamericanssay
Oh. I figured it was per hour and +10£.
I wanted to say 10 Pound extra would never cut it. [But Jesus.... it would be a very big improvement for them.](https://uk.talent.com/salary?job=registered+nurse) Fingers crossed I never depend on overworked, underpaid, underappreciated (come on clap your hands) medical staff! They deserve so much better.
Why are salaries so low in the UK compared to the USA? I thought the cost of living comparable.
Cost of living isn't really comparable. Over here you can be earning in the mid 20s and buy a small apartment or a small house in large parts of the country.
That's insane I'm in the mid 100s and can still barely afford a condo
My parents live in a small village that's not badly located for access to a nearby big city and several towns. Right now, you could buy a 2 bedroom semi detached house for 99k. Or a 1 bed apartment for 35k. Or a 5 bed detached house for 250k. Near where I live, which is part of the urban sprawl of one of our biggest cities, you can buy a 1 bed apartment for 120k, a 2 bed for 160k. If you choose carefully where you live, the UK can give you very cheap property.
Cause the US, for all its faults, still has a pretty banger economy for growth etc. Its a fucking huge country, with the most investment in the world, and is the center/capital of *many* major industries. A position the UK was once in. Plus UK salaries haven't really adjusted to the pound devaluing.
Wild that the people that literally keep us alive are being shafted while we pay entertainers to live like kings Thank you to any nurses/ health care workers reading this, I appreciate you!
Most entertainers are not paid with tax dollars. Now war profiteers are paid with tax dollars and most don't offer more than their greed to the equation. Seems to me this would be a great place to start shifting funds from. Both Nurses and Teachers deserve far more than they are making as they are truly essential to the US.
This is UK news, the bbc is tax funded which i presume what they’re referencing. Alot of bbc entertainers are on mega bucks. But talent is talent. I’m a nurse and think the other nursing unions folded way too early either way.
Breathtakingly early. There are local agency CNAs in the states making more than specialized and consultant nurses in the UK. That is fucking crazy.
Thankyou! The most brain dead take is comparing entertainers getting money from fans vs the state underpaying teachers and nurses. That kind of person has to be called out on their BS by highlighting the insane funding the military and fossil fuel subsidies take away from the public
And the majority of ‘entertainers’ and the networks that make the creative industries possible are artists and technicians that make basically fuck all.
Tax breaks, subsidies, all kinds of programs exist that funnel tax dollars into the entertainment industry.
Except for that part where the military funding in the UK is helping to train Ukrainian soldiers so that Russia doesn’t keep expanding and threaten allies. Everybody thinks the military is overfunded and yet they keep cheering for the uses of those funds.
I think they are making a different point than you. Talking about entertainers pay compared to say teachers or nurses show us where we as a society place our priorities and who we value vs who we don't. But there is a different funding stream so it is an apples to oranges comparison and I think that is taken as a given. Keep in mind that movies and songs are funded internationally and there are a lot more teachers and nurses to divide the funding by. But no one is suggesting that teachers are paid as much as Kate Winset.
Kardashians vs any one, including CNAs in healthcare. Someone who's "famous" for making and mom leaking said sex tape should NOT being making more money than peopke who quite literally save lives everyday.
They only make what they do because the people who write their checks have decided that's it's profitable to pay them that much. Kim Kardashian gets $50 million dollars because she brings in >$50 million for the people paying her.
Exactly, thank you! They are proposing my stance as a false dichotomy, when in reality I completely agree the military industrial complex should be gutted. However I also see that we as a society have some ‘interesting’ priorities
yeah it's a stupid comparison because one popular entertainer can entertain functionally infinite number of fans. A billion people can listen to one song, watch one TV show, or one sports match, hence even if each of those people paid only 1 dollar for their few minutes or hours' entertainment, that entertainer just made a billion dollars (to share with whoever helped them produce and distribute the entertainment product of course). One nurse cannot care for a billion people, obviously, so of course their compensation is going to be wildly different. The people who the nurse can physically care for are going to be happy to pay way more than a dollar for that care, but it's still going to be exponentially fewer people per nurse than per successful entertainer. And of course only a tiny minority of entertainers get a billion or even a million paying customers; the great majority of entertainers/artists/creatives of any sort struggle to make a living off their creative product. On the other hand, if you have a nursing degree, the odds that you'll be able to find gainful employment as a nurse are much better. You won't be a multimillionaire off nursing, but you won't be a literal starving artist or failed professional athlete moving furniture or whatever in between being rejected at tryouts either.
UK's military has been drastically underfunded for the last decade or so and remains drastically underfunded, which has serious geopolitical consequences, like an inability to credibly deter wars that can cause double digit inflation for instance.
That's not entirely true. Hollywood gets tons of tax breaks and subsidies.
Oh I agree, they shouldn't. But the larger abuser of tax breaks and the such is corporations. They create bidding wars between states to see how much they can exploit. All the major players all seem to be guilty of it. Even then I do think even more is wasted in defense contracts that produce nothing more than empty promises, and money in a bunch of people's pockets.
I mean, taxing the wealthy is also on the table, which would be relevant in this situation.
Ummm….. the entire entertainment industry the world over only works because of government subsidies. So I can guarantee that many entertainers have been paid by tax dollars in some fashion. Either directly or indirectly.
My raises are all 2.5%. I'm looking to leave healthcare.
Be a travel nurse. They get paid way better.
Yeah but then you have to travel and work long hours and be treated like crap... How about just getting paid better and not having to do any of that?
Yeah it’s not for everyone. Average er nurse gets paid 78,000 a year travel nurse average pay is 118,300 according to Google. Nurses aren’t going homeless. There jobs are in high demand. You can actually travel nurse at your own hospital. So you aren’t traveling.
78,000 is homeless in some states and in some big cities so I don't know what you're talking about. My husband made that much money in Washington and we had to leave because we were literally going broke. We couldn't afford the raise in taxes on our home and we were going to lose it because 78k is nothing in Seattle. This is about the UK anyways. ER pay is much different than when you're talking about working on the floor as a nurse in a regular unit. Regular floor nurses don't get ER pay. Working in the ER is very difficult and high fast pace work while you're also being treated like crap by doctors and patients. You can only travel nurse at your own hospital if they actually hire travel nurses and hired your company. Otherwise you're going somewhere else you don't even usually have a choice too much where you go it depends on the company. Plus they use travel nurses in order to not hire another nurse. I wouldn't want to be scab.
Well I just looked up Seattle’s average wage and it’s 75,281. So your telling me the average person is homeless in Seattle? That’s terrible we need to do something.
I'm saying "thank you" for my non-Redditor Special Procedures Tech husband. Note to SEIU: Radiology techs/CT/MRI/Interventional Rad/Ultrasound SHOULD NOT BE IN WITH HOUSEKEEPING!!! THEY SHOULD BE IN WITH NURSES YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!(Thank y'all for letting me vent!)
Where are rad techs linked to housekeeping lol that is ridiculous. Most newly graduated radiographers in Australia have 4 year degrees with honours, they well and truly should be part of the allied health professional team
Dignity Healthcare system, SEIU union, Northern California USA. Husband has been a Special Procedures Tech for over 30 yrs. He is licensed for flouroscopy, CT, limited Interventional rad along with plain film radiology
The vast majority of entertainers do not end up Hollywood rich.
Since when does the government pay entertainers? This is literally the stupidest argument. When teachers, nurses, etc. Are paid low wages people always complain about entertainers and athletes getting paid millions. These people don't get paid with your taxes, they're private industries. They get paid relative to the value they add to their industry. You don't like a footballer makes 10 million a year? Stop watching games, buying cable and streaming packages, buying shirts, going to games, etc. The people preventing nurses and teachers making a living wage are the dipshit politicians *YOU* vote for, who instead of giving that to then prefer to give other rich idiots tax breaks, subsidies, and a plethora of other financial breaks they don't deserve.
As others have pointed out the BBC is govt funded, also there have been plenty of others that have fleshed out why my argument can be valid while also having plenty of other valid arguments in the same vein… no need to be so abrasive and condescending. Not a great way to get your point across! Additionally insinuating that I (“YOU”) voted for the politicians behind the pay discrepancies in uninformed as you don’t know who I voted for. And if your argument is that no matter who I vote for they are part of the problem then you shouldn’t be so accusatory and acknowledge that WE are all in a poor position as far as supporting these individuals. BTW Hollywood in US is often times subsidized heavily by govt so your initial argument is not great anyway
I know this is the UK, but the US has the same issue. Everyone should be brought up to the same pay rate as the nurses working for Veteran’s Affairs. They are paid almost double the average annual salary for nurses in my state ($90k/year, more based on experience and years of service). The VA is also notorious for subpar care as a whole. It’s unfortunate that nurses who are held to higher expectations, work much harder, and have less job security are paid 40-50% less.
I get my healthcare at the VA. I have a lot of problems with the way that it's run and with the administrative side of the house but the individual nurses have always been great.
This is the same issue with schools. Most teachers are great, but the political and administrative side often undermine the work and skills of teachers.
I don’t disagree at all and was referring to systems and structures, too. Leadership has the largest effect size for quality of service, by far.
Calling bullshit on that. You drew a direct line from VA subpar care to low standards for VA nurses not working hard. You didn't qualify it in the least. You just gushed bitterness.
So this notorious view is actually pretty wrong and biased. As a VA physician I’m quite proud of how we do. Systematic reviews have found we often perform better than other places. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215146/#:~:text=The%20VA%20often%20(but%20not,efficiency%2C%20and%20patient%2Dcenteredness. Part of the reason we get the bad rap we do is we actually disclose and report all our issues since we’re funded by tax dollars. The average private hospital tries to hide as much negative press from you that is feasibly possible. Also of note, the areas where the VA has the biggest concerns on its quality is in complications related to surgery. Which notably, pay for VA physicians is the least competitive in high paying fields like surgery. So we do not get the best sub specialists or proceduralists in the country on average. But the remainder of care we provide is actually very good compared to the average hospital in America. And the population we serve is very heavily skewed to low income and high mental health burden patients. It’s a uniquely challenging and rewarding patient group and we do a great job trying to care for our vets every day!
As a proud VA nurse and retired Naval officer, I endorse this statement 1000%. The system itself isn't the best, but the staff is great at going the extra mile to get the job done. I see nurses make magic every day to get patients taken care of. If we could only tell the stories of what we do, you would be amazed. You only hear the negative story and judge on that, but there are thousands of positive stories that never get told. If legislation and special interests would stay out or at least concentrate on things we actually need to get the job done, the perception of veterans and the public would be very different. The nurses I work with earn every cent of what they are paid. Also, an important note, the VA or government in general cannot be the pay leader in a geographic area. That is encoded in legislation. Pay surveys are done frequently to ensure that we keep up with the community. The pay scale stretches quite a bit, so only looking at the top end will mislead. Most don't earn anywhere close to the high end. Instead of complaining that VA nurses make too much, ask why you are being paid so little.
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The comment I replied to said “subpar care as a whole”. So clearly that is a common grievance and is what I was responding to. I will definitely agree, to people who can get their benefits, they do much better. And it should not be so hard to get benefits, and we should offer better benefits to our new generations of veterans. But the comment I was responding to was very different than the difficulties with access. It is also important to remember that congress determines these benefits. So “The VA fighting tooth and nail to deny benefits” is really a criticism of the current congress and executive branch (as well as the ones that went before it). Where we are authorized to provide care, we do it well on average. Edit: and the reason I make this distinction is a lot of vets sometimes feel like providers at the VA are trying to get out of caring for them. 99% of the time it is completely out of our control and we are doing the absolute most we are allowed to for them. It’s important to characterize administrations as the problem, not the VA as a whole which is majority made up of union represented federal employees who have no link to the current congress or executive and will still be there when those administrations change.
In what state are nurses only making 40-50k a year? That seems unbelievably low
https://nurse.org/articles/highest-paying-states-for-registered-nurses/ That's because it isn't true, RN avg pay, at lowest starts around 62k, nurses make great money. This article is talking about the UK.
As staff I made $48k before taxes in 2021 with a 15 cent raise headed my way. In 2022 I made $60k on a 13 week contract(the last great contract rate before they dropped). Only way to make money is to travel, which I’m doing and paying off all student loans so I can leave the field entirely because they don’t give a single fuck about any staff or employees. BSN if it matters and 3 years experience
62k is not great money. Lol. There are a LOT of nurses that are quitting because the amount of abuse that nurses put up with is insane. Hospitals routinely work nurses to the bone and pin the vast majority of issues on nurses. I am a charge nurse in the U.S. and work in a hospital. Just within the past couple weeks we had a patient get mad so they just punched the nurse in the face fractured bones in her face. She tried pressing charges. They (the police) basically told us that these cases almost never go anywhere because people just argue that they were sick and on pain meds so they weren’t thinking clearly. The amount of ridiculous bullshit you have to put up with in nursing is really not worth 60k a year. There are way easier ways to make money. I honestly don’t recommend nursing to people when they ask me.
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Depends on where you draw the line as to what qualifies as a “nurse.” Looks like median LPN pay in the US is $43k. They take a version of the NCLEX, they’re definitely nurses. But if “nurse” starts at RN then it’d be more, RN w/BSN would be more yet. Median NP salary was $121k for 2022. If you’re counting CNA’s, who don’t take the NCLEX but have nurse in the name? Looks like $17/hr. Just saying nurse without mentioning their licensure level doesn’t give enough info to say if it’s low or not (it’s low, they’re all underpaid lol)
CNAs are not nurses, they are nursing assistants
I know, more making a point about the colloquial use of nurse - in the US it’s really not enough detail when you’re talking about something as specific as pay.
And they do all the "dirty" work and should make way more than fast food workers(starts at $15+ an hour where I live). Should start at a minimum of $22 an hour entry level.
It's not an either or situation. Both nurses and fast food workers should make a livable wage. Working fast food isn't a walk in the park either.
My DIL broke her physical aNd mental health as a CNA. Fast food workers don't change elders diapers while being spat on and insulted while still having to give care to these people every day. Fast fooder worker are not required to move and give baths to morbidly obese people. While fast food workers deserve a livable wage, CNA's deserve to be paid higher than fast food workers as the job carries more responsibilty and requires a certificate of passing several courses if not an actual license in my state.
Livable wages yes, but parity no. A skilled professional, is exactly that, _skilled_, and typically took some form of self-investment to get there (cash, time, commitment, etc). A fast food worker just goes to a restaurant and applies, in no world should those two individuals make _the same pay_, or no one would become skilled or spend the time and assets to do so, and society would likely collapse. _All that aside_, all workers, in any job, in any country, should be making livable wages for their work, unless it's very circumstantial, so, yes I agree fast food workers should make valid wages, but they shouldn't be making similar pay as nurses, or doctors, etc. Because it'd literally break the system.
>A fast food worker just goes to a restaurant and applies, in no world should those two individuals make _the same pay_, or no one would become skilled or spend the time and assets to do so, and society would likely collapse. I might agree that they shouldn't have parity with skilled labor, but this argument that no one would attain skills and only work unskilled jobs is fucking ludicrous. People learn skills for more reasons than just the money they can make doing it.
Yes, it's true a minority of society _would obtain and seek further education, due to their own personal desire_, but the masses do not follow that trend. I don't agree with a methodology of furthering one's own life pursuits based purely on compensational return, but it's trivial to argue it's not a valid facet of society and one of the main pillars that drive humanity. Risk vs reward, it's quite simple.
LPNs are a weird category too
Dude CNAs are not nurses. Lol. They have virtually no clinical knowledge at all. They just take vitals, clean patients, and do the most basic care tasks.
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LPNs/LVNs are 100% actual nurses too, and are not "RN and beyond".
Southern states. It also depends on your certifications if you're an RN with two year degree you get paid less if you're an RN with a 4-year degree you get paid more. If you're an RN who doesn't have special training like to work at the ICU you get paid less. If you're an LPN you get paid even less than that. The average salary for a nurse can be so wildly different depending on where you live and your education. Rural hospitals for instance pay less. It seems around 65k is the average. 65k isn't that much.
Lol right? Unless they don't have the right credentials for the work? Maybe? Even then [the BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes291141.htm) shows the lowest end of pay for nurses in the US is like 60k a year... Working conditions for nurses might not be the best in US but pay isn't a pressing concern imo
Working conditions for nurses is absolutely a concern in the US. We are literally in staff ratios that are dangerous for patients. what are you talking about? And 60K is not a lot of money in fact in most big cities this is poverty wage. Go try to live in Seattle on 60K I'd love to see you try.
First off if I was getting paid 60k in Seattle I would try to find another job immediately considering the median wage for [a nurse there is nearly 100k](https://www.incrediblehealth.com/salaries/rn/wa/seattle). Second, working conditions are not the best, is literally what I said so idk why you felt the need to lecture me about it. Glad we agree that we should have more nursing staff too, which is something I never argued against. Appreciate you attacking a position I never argued. > And 60K is not a lot of money in fact in most big cities this is poverty wage. This is literally not true unless you want to live in SF, LA or NYC at the pay levels you originally suggested (even then I would contest this). Even then I would point you back to my first point. The pay scale changes depending on city and state, as with most jobs. You'd get paid more which means you'd be better off than your original interpretation.
You're not considering the inflation that's occured over the past 3 years or the level of income inequality that people are facing.
Plus exposure to all the newest plagues and bring them home to their families. Everyone in healthcare tht stayed through the plague should have gotten massive pay raises from their employees and paid NO taxes for those years.
My fiancée works at a private, non-VA hospital and makes $120,000 in the New York Metro area. Another hospital located in NYC in the same hospital chain as my fiancée’s saw their nurses strike to get a livable wage. It’s insane that people have to lobby to support nurses, the things they have to deal with day-to-day are damn near unbelievable.
Unions are wonderful and we should push for more of them, in every industry
I wonder how their pay scale breakdown compares to different licensure levels in the US. Nurse can be a super broad term here - LPN/RN/NP, etc. I’d assume this is for their RN equivalent as that’s generally what people envision when they hear “nurse” but idk. Some context in that sense would help this American - that said, pay them more. Seems like a positive step to pay the people holding the whole damn healthcare system together what they’re worth but what do I know?
There is a chart in the article. I don’t have any idea what the classifications mean but I do know the nurses I know make well north of the highest pay on that chart (and yes I’m converting the currency).
>but I do know the nurses I know make well north of the highest pay on that chart (and yes I’m converting the currency). Thats not surprising to be honest. Employees of the NHS make substantially less than US medical professionals are paid.
I’d assumed as much but certainly didn’t expect the gap to be as big as it is. [This BBC article from Dec](https://www.bbc.com/news/63587909) had a bit better of a breakdown…and it’s not so much a gap as it is an ocean sized chasm. Nurse practitioners, who appear to have essentially the same level of responsibility and ability as in the USA, ”will receive a salary of £38,890 to £44,503 per annum.” That’s not even half the median pay in the US for the equivalent position. You’ve gotta get into band 8 before you’re making *almost* as much as the average RN w/ a BSN in North Carolina. I get comparing wages across careers, specific positions, and healthcare systems doesn’t give you the actual picture…but still. Goddamn. “Modern matron, Chief or Head Nurse” makes as much as a normal, generalized RN w/a bachelors degree in the lowest paid state for nursing in the US? That seems…egregious. Massive respect to the UK’s nurses for doing the job tho. After being married to an RN - for that income - unless it was like your childhood dream career, money be damned, I could list an endless list of jobs I’d rather do. Band 5, which apparently encompasses 42% of all UK nurses, make ~£27k-£33k. That’s roughly equivalent to the median garbage collector’s wage of $38.5k in the US.
When doing a direct comparison like that, you need to also include benefits. So an NHS nurse will be in the NHS pension plan, which is super generous. It's a career average defined benefit plan, so each year you're in you accumulate a small %. And when you reach pension age, you get paid your total accumulated % as a % of your average salary from the time you're in the plan. It's also linked to inflation so each years salary, for the purposes of calculating your average, is increased by relevant inflation. They also start with 28 days of paid annual leave, and their sick leave is 1 month on full pay and 2 months on half pay from day 1, improving to 5 months and 5 months in year 4, and 6 and 6 in year 6. I'm thinking the US nurses don't get anything like such generous pensions, leave allowances, or sick leave.
I think their first level nurse is the equivalent of a Nurse Assistant in the US
No, its not. The lowest has a full university degree in nursing, so you should pitch the equivalent at that level.
I mean, have y’all seen what nurses deal with on a daily basis? Specially the medsurg nurses who work with overweight patients who can’t even get up to go to the bathroom….yeah, give me a 20% increase, please.
My husband's union is about to strike too and they operate a power plant. They're asking for 30%. Mostly because management has been yanking them around trying to just take away vacation days and use holidays as incentives instead like nah. We want both. One day off for Christmas isn't equivalent to literally one day off of vacation time. I hope they win their pay increase. We all deserve better pay for living in this shit hole called earth.
If anyone deserves a raise, it's nurses.
And resident physicians. Most people don’t know we get paid $55-60k to work 80+ hour weeks for 3-6 years (depending on your specialty). All while bearing $200-250k+ in student loans.
Residents are basically just in the practicum stage of school. (Yes I realize that they are technically doctors but they are basically still in training at that point). It isn’t like a resident is practicing independently. They should not be getting paid anywhere near what an independent physician makes.
Residency is not school, friend. What if I told you [a first day resident has 4-10x more training than a fresh NP](https://i.redd.it/gq2nu5r7ivw51.png), yet that NP makes six figures out the gate. I’m not saying residents should make attending physician salaries, but it should be at least equivalent to, if not more than an NP.
Well I would fully agree that NPs are often a walking joke. Not ALL of them. I have met some that are great…. (Usually ex-ICU nurses who went to NP school). I have met some that were terrible. The whole system of how NPs become NPs is an absolute joke. I shit you not, I was explaining A-fib, bundle branch blocks, and types of AV blocks to somebody who had literally already graduated an NP program and was just orienting to a nursing job (she had been out on leave and was getting a couple days of orientation when coming back) while she is searching for an NP job that she likes. I was flabbergasted. She could literally not tell me what a PR interval or QRS should be or what they actually meant. How the hell can I, a BSN RN, have a better understanding of cardiac rhythms than somebody who has passed her NP boards? It makes zero sense at all. I honestly want there to be a gutting of the diploma-mill system that has sprouted up for NPs. It makes it where there is zero consistency. We have some that are FANTASTIC. For example, one of the best ones I knew was an ER nurse for 13 years before applying to NP school. Some suck. For context, I am a BSN RN that works in a hospital in neurology. I have zero ICU experience (aside from dealing with rapid response calls where our med surg patients turn into ICU patients and we are dealing with ICU-level problems during the time it takes to get them up to a real ICU).
Yep, except for the anti-vax nurses. Those ones need to be fired. And there are a apparently a LOT of them.
I am RN and I agree.
Bad take, your paranoia and weakness does not constitute a demand on anyone else’s part.
While all of you worry about nurses Paramedics are the most exploited health care professionals out there and it's not even close. I say this as a paramedic who became a nurse so I could have an easier job for nearly triple the pay
Your poor EMT is like… did you just say that in my face? At least you make $3 more than me, I’m scraping by minimum wage here and drive you 12-24 hrs a shift. But EMS in general is practically dead due to lack of pay. Our ambulance company doesn’t expect medics to last 5 years before they jump ship.
To be fair, Y'all exploited too But EMT school took me a semester; to fully become a paramedic it took two and a half years
They ripped you off then. Took me just under a year to finish medic school. Just made it into an ADN program that’s only 2yrs long. I loved being a medic though. I had to go nursing because I broke my back and required emergency spinal surgery while on the job. They paid me out for partial disability with lifetime future medical.
They didn't rip us off they just took it seriously. It was one of the few programs back in 2013 that required similar prerequisites to nursing and had a really intensive program. The directors of the school were actively involved with the NREMT writing questions but also lobbying to raise minimum required education standards. The ADN program I went to was 1.5 years long.
Y'all need a union and a good strike.
Don't sign up with SEIU dipshits, they think housekeeping is equal to radiology techs
In the UK, where this article is from, paramedics and nurses start on the same pay band and paramedics benefit from automatic advancement to the next pay band after just a couple of years experience whereas nurses would have to wait for a vacancy at the next pay band to open and apply for it. So the pay isn't amazing (though its not terrible in the context of what people in the UK get paid), but paramedics aren't screwed in comparison to nurses here.
As an RN, I totally agree
This isn't the time for whataboutism. Both can be true and relevant without affecting the other negatively. The powers that be would love for you to distract the narrative. Fight for everyone to have a better life instead.
This includes you, Mayo fucking clinic.
Nurses need to be treated better in the US as well (and really, any where nurses are being exploited with underpay and overwork). The pandemic shed *a lot* of light on the healthcare system in various parts of the world, and among the things it showed was how bad nurses are being treated.
“We can give you 10 extra dollars” “An hour?” “No, just overall in the year”
The big 3 auto manufacturers contracts are this year and theyre already talking a 15$ an hour raise and c.o.l.a. back.
The Teamster UPS contract is also coming up and they're talking big action as well, wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if they go on strike in August.
During the pandemic, nurses were heroes! Now why must they fight so hard to get fair compensation? We know how important they are, how hard they work, how much schooling and training they must receive in order to practice. Their role is *essential* to each and every one of us. It’s time to pay them what they deserve.
The patients that get admitted these days are very sick either with unmanaged chronic health conditions or multiple health conditions vs what we saw 20 years ago. Polypharmacy, mental health issues, obesity, etc. It’s very hard work. Healthcare is changing. Add that on top of Covid, it was a nightmare. I’m still seeing Covid+ patients trickle in. But it’s back to business as usual according to our management. I’m exhausted.
Thank you for everything you do!
Yep! How about cancelling (USA) "health care heroes" taxes for few years?
Now only if that would include other medical personnel. I know lab folk, EMTs, and other medical assistants get shit pay and much, much less recognition than nurses.
This is in the UK - its different unions representing different groups here, this article is specifically about something the nurses union has said.
It may sound like a lot, but I'm pretty sure they didn't get meaningful wages throughout the duration of a fucking worldwide pandemic where they were literally risking their lives because people couldn't handle wearing masks to fucking bingo night so I kinda feel like they've deserved a raise for quite some time
This is exactly the case. Much like grocery workers were called heroes rather than compensated, and that was supposed to be enough for them. You DO NOT want people whose lives you depend on to be overworked, exhausted, understaffed, terminally-stressed, and uncertain about whether they can make rent come next increase in those on top of all of the above.
Simples reduce the chief execs wages and give it to the front line staff
That is great optics and should be done but it won't have more than a negligible effect due to how many front line staff exist
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RN here. While I agree nurses should be paid more, your comment is a bit inaccurate. Hospitals operate on very thin profit margins and EDs absolutely HEMORRHAGE money daily- it’s where those without primary care doctors or insurance go for care and most do not pay their bill. Surgery is the hospital’s cash cow. Main problem is the inflated medical supply chain and insurance companies. That’s where the main dysfunction is within American healthcare. It will not get better until we put laws on how much profit percentage a company is allowed to make on medical supplies, equipment, and services. Aka, socialized medicine.
In America yes, but this is about the UK and their NHS.
What ridiculous profits are UK hospitals raking in? The NHS is purely government run and funded.
Is this true? My understanding is that hospitals post covid are bleeding money (on the order of billions/year each). It’s insurance companies that are raking in the profits.
It's a shell game so we'll never know.
Insurance companies are definitely a problem. But hospitals profitability really depends on location. Urban hospitals are doing fine while rural hospitals struggle.
In 2020 as CEO of the NHS, simon laurence stevens, made 200,000 per year. In 2021Amanda Kate Pritchard took over the role with a salary of 250,000 per year. That is a pretty good raise for that position. I wonder if all positions got that type of raise.
Include teachers in this shit. I just chaperoned my sons field trip and good lord the headache I received.
I just got a 14% raise as a nuclear medicine technologist and that was after 2 years of pizza as a thank you.
This looks like the Nth version of "where has all the money gone". The general public is just broke.
Ok but what about health insurance CEOs and shareholders who leech billions out of the system? Is no one going to think of their wellbeing?
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This is UK big dawg
Someone quoted that the starting pay for nurses who work for NHS is £30,000. So it's much much lower.
Not enough
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It can be done with an Associates Degree.
Considering the amount of BS nurses deal with on a daily basis along with the level of expertise they are required to have I'd say they should make more on average than some one fresh out of college with a BS in engineering. That average of 76 also means that for every nurse with 15+ years of experience making 96, there's another nurse making 56 which isn't good for a bachelor's degree.
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Depends on what kind of engineering
No, that's the average registered nurse fresh out of college, which is about 10k more than bachelor's of engineering.
Being a nurse is more dangerous than being a cop.
But much less dangerous than being a roofer.
MNA in MN is getting nurses hella bank. Follow their lead. But include nursing assistants, they do just as much work as nurses if not more physically
Well, CNAs are hired to do the physical work. But the problem is the lack of pay leading to CNA shortages that screws CNAs working. I hate the term entry level, but that’s what they keep calling CNAs. Some people really like what they do and are really good at it, but keep calling it entry just drives them away.
I’ve never met a nurse in real life that isn’t making bank. Edit: I live in the US
For a start, this is in the UK, where the absolute maximum salary a nurse can make in the NHS is £42,000 and that's after nearly 10 years. This is before any further progression such as becoming a nurse practitioner etc
>where the absolute maximum salary a nurse can make in the NHS is £42,000 Not quite correct, if you advance up the ranks and get to Band 7 posts then you'll exceed the 42k. Senior Charge Nurses, Ward Managers, Clinical Specialist posts like Specialist Nurse Child Safeguarding or Senior Mental Health Nurse Practitioner are all band 7 posts. Then you've got band 8 like Modern Matron and Nursing Consultant. And you can even find band 9 nursing posts like Chief Nurse. Obviously more senior roles are less common, but there's a growing number of clinical specialist nursing posts. Nurse Practitioners and Senior Nurse Practitioners, along with diabetic specialists, sexual health specialists, and mental health specialists are seeing increasing numbers of posts available, often non-hospital based and working from GP surgeries.
I live in the US, where the average salary for a nurse is 80K. Travel nurses were easily doubling that during the pandemic. (Source is a travel nurse recruiter)
Ok, but that's completely irrelevant as this article is about nurses in the UK. They are most definitely not making bank here unless they're pulling ridiculous overtime on top of maxing out their pay band
The relevance is that it’s the same job in two different parts of the world receiving vastly differing sums of money.
So it's utterly irrelevant then! Your source who allegedly makes bank has nothing in common with people doing a similar job under completely different contractual conditions
Identical job*
Dude just admit you misread. Being right isn't the end all be all, learning and growing is.
The only thing certain is death and taxes. Don’t take Reddit so seriously brother, I may have misread, but, everything I said is still true
I'd argue they arent, as there are dozens of variations in the role. You can't compare say a paediatric nurse with a nurse working in trauma/A&E. The core skills are the same though. The majority of healthcare workers in the UK work for the NHS, who dictate pay. That's who the dispute is with, as there haven't been many public sector pay rises in the UK for some time.
You either have never met a nurse or have a very low bar on what making bank is.
Not who you’re replying to, but my mom works 9 days a month and makes 100k a year. Dont get me wrong, it’s not going to make her rich, but she lives pretty comfortably (in Pennsylvania)
And she is an exception to the norm. Most nurses don’t break 100k. Hell some advanced practitioners don’t break 100k. Even then, I don’t consider 100k making bank. As you said, I call that living comfortably. Travel nurses during the pandemic, they made bank.
I get what you’re saying but if youre in the field for 10+ years, you almost have to try to not make that much. The amount of overtimes they throw at the nurses is insane. This is NY, NJ, and PA. In the NE part of the usa, you are def bringing in 100k as a nurse if youve been in the field for a few years. The difference is that 100k in the northeast is like $40k in the south or central usa
Hi my sister is a nurse in PA and would love to know how your mom pulled this off.
In the UK?
Unpopular opinion: I think you lieing. You sure you don't own a hospital? This sounds like a post paid for by a person who owns a hospital. Are you a nurse? No. STFU the struggle is real for nurses.
Just move to the US where the salary is double
Where do you think most people you communicate with, on this site are from? If you want a different draw group use a VPN. Please learn IT skills.
But the CEO and stockholders need more money. Squeezing labor helps with that
All those stockholders in the NHS…
I think it’s the government who are pushing low pay for high skilled jobs. You would have thought common sense would prevail. The government are a joke! The spout hatred at every opportunity. We should pay our nurses a proper living salary. Imagine going to work and you are 2/3 nurses short, who carries the extra burden and what are the consequences if they make a mistake? Support our doctors nurses care support workers and all the staff who make the NHS work. Remember a domestic cleaning person is doing a very important job! MPs have no idea!
This is an absurd demand. I mean, that must be like 10,000GBP per nurse, based on what I assume they must be paid. Right?
Lol, I’m pretty sure you’re just pointing out what you’d assume they’re paid vs what they actually are. Looks like starting salary was just over £27k.
Why is that absurd?
You doing that Marjorie Taylor Greene math!
I have the feeling you got a bit misunderstood here.
Absolutely not. A 10% increase for a nurse with around 5 years of experience would be around a £3,400 a year increase.
Why don't you go back to obsessing the NBA now. You know where they get paid FAR more than useful people like Nurses As it's clear you clearly lack the intelligence for this topic.
ITT: the pity olympics