Letters
Send your views by email to [email protected], the letters editor @RogerEvansE1, post on the Nursing Standard Facebook page or visit www.nursing-standard.co.uk
Please keep letters to a maximum of 200 words, and include your full name and a daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited
Working to rule for a pay rise would be as effective as going on strike I welcome the breakdown of your survey with the Sunday Mirror (Analysis September 3), which shows overwhelming dissatisfaction as regards pay and conditions. We nurses are understandably reluctant to withdraw our services and leave patients in the lurch. But there are many actions that can be taken short of industrial action that would be effective. Working to rule is the obvious action. If all of us just worked to our contractual hours every day for a month, the NHS would grind to a halt. I recommend that we refuse to work over and above our contractual hours, refuse to do any overtime, and we make a point of leaving the ward or clinic for our contractual mealtimes and all our tea and coffee breaks. Nurses in Ireland got it right in their 2007 campaign for better pay and a shorter working week. They worked to rule and refused to work through their mealtimes. They also refused to undertake any clerical, administrative and IT duties, or make any telephone calls that were not deemed essential on clinical grounds. After seven weeks of this level of action, an agreement was reached. We tend to overlook one obvious point. In any work to rule, the patients would be behind us all the way. Christine Clark, by email
I HAVE HAD ENOUGH AND AM READY TO TAKE ACTION OVER NURSES’ PAY Health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced in March that he was overriding the 1 per cent pay rise recommended by the independent pay review body. He claimed that the NHS could not afford the increase. This put him on a collision course with the health unions. They may have been slow to react, but the wheels are
finally turning. The Royal College of Midwives, Unison, Unite and the GMB are balloting their members on strike action over pay. Nursing Standard’s survey of 6,000 nurses reveals that 63 per cent would be prepared to take action short of strike action over pay and 33 per cent would be prepared to go on strike over pay (Editorial, News, Analysis and Letters September 3). Given the time lag since Mr Hunt’s announcement and the government’s intransigence, these responses are incredible. They reveal a deep running sore of anger and frustration. Editor Graham Scott is right to point out in his editorial that nurses’ goodwill has been exploited time and again by employers and politicians from all parties. But there are limits – and mine has certainly been reached. I welcome an autumn of discontent. Bring it on. I also echo the comment in Zeba Arif’s letter that elections are an
opportunity for us to wield our political power. In next year’s general election, we need to vote for MPs who will value nurses and nursing, and who will safeguard the NHS. Bridget Ryan, by email
TO USE THE PAY REVIEW BODY AS A POLITICAL TOOL IS A DISGRACE The independent pay review body’s recommendations on a 1 per cent pay rise were overruled earlier this year by the government. Health minister Dan Poulter has now written to the chair of the pay review body asking it to look at ways of delivering healthcare services ‘every day of the week in a financially sustainable way, ie without increasing the existing spend’. Interestingly, he has asked the pay body to make observations on seven-day services for England only. It is outrageous that Mr Poulter, a qualified medical doctor with a great deal of experience of front line
32 september :: vol 29 no 2by:: 2014 STANDARD Downloaded10 from RCNi.com ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 15, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
Send your views by email to [email protected], the letters editor @RogerEvansE1, post on the Nursing Standard Facebook page or visit www.nursing-standard.co.uk
Please keep letters to a maximum of 200 words, and include your full name and a daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited
Working to rule for a pay rise would be as effective as going on strike I welcome the breakdown of your survey with the Sunday Mirror (Analysis September 3), which shows overwhelming dissatisfaction as regards pay and conditions. We nurses are understandably reluctant to withdraw our services and leave patients in the lurch. But there are many actions that can be taken short of industrial action that would be effective. Working to rule is the obvious action. If all of us just worked to our contractual hours every day for a month, the NHS would grind to a halt. I recommend that we refuse to work over and above our contractual hours, refuse to do any overtime, and we make a point of leaving the ward or clinic for our contractual mealtimes and all our tea and coffee breaks. Nurses in Ireland got it right in their 2007 campaign for better pay and a shorter working week. They worked to rule and refused to work through their mealtimes. They also refused to undertake any clerical, administrative and IT duties, or make any telephone calls that were not deemed essential on clinical grounds. After seven weeks of this level of action, an agreement was reached. We tend to overlook one obvious point. In any work to rule, the patients would be behind us all the way. Christine Clark, by email
I HAVE HAD ENOUGH AND AM READY TO TAKE ACTION OVER NURSES’ PAY Health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced in March that he was overriding the 1 per cent pay rise recommended by the independent pay review body. He claimed that the NHS could not afford the increase. This put him on a collision course with the health unions. They may have been slow to react, but the wheels are
finally turning. The Royal College of Midwives, Unison, Unite and the GMB are balloting their members on strike action over pay. Nursing Standard’s survey of 6,000 nurses reveals that 63 per cent would be prepared to take action short of strike action over pay and 33 per cent would be prepared to go on strike over pay (Editorial, News, Analysis and Letters September 3). Given the time lag since Mr Hunt’s announcement and the government’s intransigence, these responses are incredible. They reveal a deep running sore of anger and frustration. Editor Graham Scott is right to point out in his editorial that nurses’ goodwill has been exploited time and again by employers and politicians from all parties. But there are limits – and mine has certainly been reached. I welcome an autumn of discontent. Bring it on. I also echo the comment in Zeba Arif’s letter that elections are an
opportunity for us to wield our political power. In next year’s general election, we need to vote for MPs who will value nurses and nursing, and who will safeguard the NHS. Bridget Ryan, by email
TO USE THE PAY REVIEW BODY AS A POLITICAL TOOL IS A DISGRACE The independent pay review body’s recommendations on a 1 per cent pay rise were overruled earlier this year by the government. Health minister Dan Poulter has now written to the chair of the pay review body asking it to look at ways of delivering healthcare services ‘every day of the week in a financially sustainable way, ie without increasing the existing spend’. Interestingly, he has asked the pay body to make observations on seven-day services for England only. It is outrageous that Mr Poulter, a qualified medical doctor with a great deal of experience of front line
32 september :: vol 29 no 2by:: 2014 STANDARD Downloaded10 from RCNi.com ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 15, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
