Really curious to hear how much you think NHS works should be paid - could also be good reading for our politicians!!
Please let us know your thoughts on…
Managers - starting salary: Managers - salary after 5 years experience: Managers - salary after 10 years experience/senior level:
Doctors/Consultants - starting salary/junior level: Doctors/Consultants - salary after 5 years experience/mid level: Doctors/Consultants - salary after 10 years experience/senior level:
Nurses - starting salary: Nurses - salary after 5 years experience: Nurses - salary after 10 years experience/senior level:
Nursing Assistants (i.e those who are not qualified nurses) - starting salary: Nursing Assistants (i.e those who are not qualified nurses) - salary after 5 years experience: Nursing Assistants (i.e those who are not qualified nurses) - salary after 10 years experience/senior level:
Porters/Cleaners/Canteen Workers etc - starting salary: Porters/Cleaners/Canteen Workers etc - salary after 5 years experience: Porters/Cleaners/Canteen Workers etc - salary after 10 years experience/senior level:
Admin Staff - starting salary: Admin Staff - salary after 5 years experience: Admin Staff - salary after 10 years experience/senior level:
Please feel free to add any other categories you think should be worth considering
Managers - starting salary: £20K Managers - salary after 5 years experience: £30K Managers - salary after 10 years experience: £50K
Doctors/Consultants - starting salary: £20K Doctors/Consultants - salary after 5 years experience: £50K Doctors/Consultants - salary after 10 years experience: £100K
Nurses - starting salary: £20K Nurses - salary after 5 years experience: £30K Nurses - salary after 10 years experience: £40K
Nursing Assistants (i.e those who are not qualified nurses) - starting salary: £20K Nursing Assistants (i.e those who are not qualified nurses) - salary after 5 years experience: £25K Nursing Assistants (i.e those who are not qualified nurses) - salary after 10 years experience: £30K
Porters/Cleaners/Canteen Workers etc - starting salary: £20K Porters/Cleaners/Canteen Workers etc - salary after 5 years experience: £25K Porters/Cleaners/Canteen Workers etc - salary after 10 years experience: £30K
Admin Staff - starting salary: £20K Admin Staff - salary after 5 years experience: £25K Admin Staff - salary after 10 years experience: £30K
Seems fair to me - the greedy managers and consultants should take a pay cut to even out the salaries for everyone else. I wonder how much we’d save if these salaries were brought in?
I do not know enough about the different duties and responsibilities of each NHS Job to venture a suggestion of what their salaries should be.
I have never been employed by the NHS but my voluntary work in hospital fundraising has given me a good insight into the finances of my local hospital and I have observed over the years how the structure of the NHS became top-heavy with management staff - “too many chiefs and not enough workers” - the rot started when they re-jigged all the NHS Trusts and new contracts in the early “noughties”, in my opinion - and those Blair years not only increased the number of managers and admin staff, they also pushed NHS Trusts into selling off important capital assets, such as rehabilitation hospitals for those no longer needing hospital treatment but not self-sufficient enough to go home on their own.
When it comes to the decline of the NHS, the Tories are now finishing off the job that Blair started - it needs a complete re-organisation.
I think a starting salary of £20k for any Management position sounds a bit too low - I have been retired too long to know what the going rate in business is now but £20k pa equates to an hourly rate of £10.25, based on NHS definition of “Full Time” working week of 37.5 hours - that is below the what the National Minimum Wage will be for those aged over 23 from April 2023 (£10.42 ph)
Rather than reducing the salary of each NHS Manager, it may be better to look at how to make the admin sections more efficient and cost-effective by reducing the overall number of managers and investing the savings into more clinical staff.
It’s thinking like this that is resulting in nurses deserting the profession. Do you know how many hours they have to work and the strain on their health? It’s a very difficult job these days. The technology is such that they need to be constantly on edge checking complex machinery. Some jobs such as ICU are incredibly demanding (remember when BJ was in hospital?).
Just noticed you also left off paramedics. That is an incredibly tough job. I once looked at this as a career change but wow! you have to be so resilient to do this job. The shifts are totally anti social and the mental trauma they have to deal with does not leave them when they go home. Someone dies on their shift and it’s impossible for them to not feel guilt even though they know they could not save them. Paramedics are employed by the NHS.
Without the managers none of the cogs are there for the wheels to turn. That’s why they had no blankets in A&E when our poor mum was there last year. The unit was run by doctors…
We need to pay the often mentioned good ones more than the often rated bad ones.
That could be worked out using “Pay For Performance” systems whereby Patients, Managers & others, get asked, regularly, how they rate the staff, and the staff get asked how they rate their Management/Seniors.
On a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 is exceptional & 4 is “doing the basic job effectively”.
Best rating should be best paid.
Oh! & a 5 is someone who “needs to improve”.
Paying everyone the same is not effective.
But, this will get laughed out by those who like all to be rated the same.
Actually, the firm I used to work for did it exactly this way and turned in as good a profit as most.
If you reward the good people who will put in the extra effort, when needed, like not walking out at 5 pm, or whatever, you might get some real benefits.
But if you pay the good guy as low as the worst guy, you’ll lose him/her!.
Edited to add : there will be inexpensive tick box systems available at very low cost.
Yes I can definitely agree such a process would work in a profit-generating organisation. It would pay for itself. In the NHS it would not result in any increase in £’s for the NHS but could lead to court cases for discrimination etc.
New Labour introduced something called “payment by results” where hospitals were paid a tariff for most procedures. They combined this with patient choice so people could choose which hospital they went to. Only hospitals that had a good reputation and the best service would attract the most patients and income. They also rolled out the foundation trust model which would require hospitals to aspire to be a foundation trust. They would have to fulfil various operational and quality standards to attain this level. Once they were a foundation trust they could have more freedom to self determine and run their hospitals, including generating private income. The choice included one private provider. The idea was to move hospitals to a more commercial model. Something Thatcher aspired to as well.
The Tories have removed most of that now. The plan is to move care away from hospitals and into (as yet pretty much non existent) community services which the Tories started wiping out funding for soon after they gained power.
The question is not how much individual roles (of which only a simplistic view is ever presented) in such a highly complex organisation should be paid, but why such individuals would want to continue to work in an organisation that is a constant political football, full of successive government meddling and uncertainty which everyone thinks should be fixed and has a constant axe hanging over it. Individuals who work in the NHS are not motivated solely by pay. It’s also not a vocation they should do for free or for a pittance, but there is a great deal of dedication there. To keep it running every time successive governments make yet another shambolic reorganisation has to require mind over matter. After Covid it’s unsurprising they are totally fed up.
There seems to be an assumption that all nurses work flat out in huge and very busy hospitals. Nurses work in schools, health centres, nursing homes and universities and colleges and their workload is much easier and in fact, quite cushy.
At my health check the other day I asked the Nurse whether she was busy and she said she had just THREE appointments all day. She had nothing else to do as she was brought in from another practice.
I think Healthcare Assistants deserve more money as they get all the nasty jobs to do that are now considered beneath a degree qualified nurse.
