News
Share your news with us – email [email protected], call +44 (0)20 8872 3144 or @NurseStandard
Scrap unsocial hours payments and nurses will retaliate, warns RCN Exclusive by Katie Osborne @NS_reporter The RCN will consider balloting its members on taking industrial action if the next government removes unsocial hours payments for nurses. The college’s head of employment relations Josie Irwin said the proverbial ‘worm’ would turn if these payments are removed. ‘The RCN is very clear that while members were not prepared to consider strike action with regards to the 1% pay deal, an attack on unsocial hours pay would change that. ‘All the evidence and all the responses to surveys on this issue indicate that they would feel very differently about militant action.’ In January, health minister Dan Poulter asked the NHS Pay Review Body (RB) to look into how 24/7 services could be introduced at no extra cost. The RB is due to publish its report in June. The Department of Health suggested unsocial hours
payments, part of nationally agreed terms and conditions, could be scrapped to make 24/7 working across the NHS affordable. Calls for industrial action against the proposals are also intensifying among members of Unite and Unison. This week, nurses at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London
MANY NURSES DO NOT FEEL ‘WORTHY’ TO CLAIM WHAT THEY ARE ENTITLED TO will stage a demonstration against the removal of unsocial hours payments. The RCN is developing an online resource to make it easier for members to ensure they are compensated properly for working through breaks and other additional hours. The move comes after the college received relatively few responses to its ‘excess hours’ campaign, launched earlier this year to encourage nurses to submit claims for overtime payments.
Some nurses have already received extra money for working overtime after issuing claims, and the RCN expects more claims to follow once members realise they could benefit. Head of campaigns and external affairs Jane Hughes said anecdotal evidence suggests many nurses do not feel ‘worthy’ so are reluctant to claim what is rightfully theirs. ‘Some nurses are of the opinion that “this is how it is, it’s my job and I’ll just get on with it”,’ Ms Hughes said. She stressed the importance of nurses being compensated properly for all the hours they work. An RCN spokesperson added that officers had gathered ‘powerful evidence’ on the long hours worked by some members, and in particular the lack of time they were allowed at handover to discuss vital information. Such practices are now being challenged, she said. The campaign is due to be rolled out to all trusts in Northern Ireland from next week.
Nurse Helen is back in the driving seat after successful campaign
APEX
District nurse Helen Nicholds, pictured, who has type 1 diabetes, is back behind the wheel after successfully appealing a driving ban imposed by the DVLA after she had two hypoglycaemic events. Ms Nicholds, who is insulin-dependent, had her license revoked in October 2014 after declaring two night-time hypos, which she had when under stress revising for a prescribing exam and during a heatwave. A 2011 European Union directive states a person with insulin-dependent diabetes cannot drive if they have two severe hypos in a year. Ms Nicholds has started a petition to change the rules. Go to tinyurl.com/A4DD-petition
NURSING STANDARD aprilNo29other :: vol 29without no 35 permission. :: 2015 7 Downloaded from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Dec 02, 2015. For personal use only. uses Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
Share your news with us – email [email protected], call +44 (0)20 8872 3144 or @NurseStandard
Scrap unsocial hours payments and nurses will retaliate, warns RCN Exclusive by Katie Osborne @NS_reporter The RCN will consider balloting its members on taking industrial action if the next government removes unsocial hours payments for nurses. The college’s head of employment relations Josie Irwin said the proverbial ‘worm’ would turn if these payments are removed. ‘The RCN is very clear that while members were not prepared to consider strike action with regards to the 1% pay deal, an attack on unsocial hours pay would change that. ‘All the evidence and all the responses to surveys on this issue indicate that they would feel very differently about militant action.’ In January, health minister Dan Poulter asked the NHS Pay Review Body (RB) to look into how 24/7 services could be introduced at no extra cost. The RB is due to publish its report in June. The Department of Health suggested unsocial hours
payments, part of nationally agreed terms and conditions, could be scrapped to make 24/7 working across the NHS affordable. Calls for industrial action against the proposals are also intensifying among members of Unite and Unison. This week, nurses at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London
MANY NURSES DO NOT FEEL ‘WORTHY’ TO CLAIM WHAT THEY ARE ENTITLED TO will stage a demonstration against the removal of unsocial hours payments. The RCN is developing an online resource to make it easier for members to ensure they are compensated properly for working through breaks and other additional hours. The move comes after the college received relatively few responses to its ‘excess hours’ campaign, launched earlier this year to encourage nurses to submit claims for overtime payments.
Some nurses have already received extra money for working overtime after issuing claims, and the RCN expects more claims to follow once members realise they could benefit. Head of campaigns and external affairs Jane Hughes said anecdotal evidence suggests many nurses do not feel ‘worthy’ so are reluctant to claim what is rightfully theirs. ‘Some nurses are of the opinion that “this is how it is, it’s my job and I’ll just get on with it”,’ Ms Hughes said. She stressed the importance of nurses being compensated properly for all the hours they work. An RCN spokesperson added that officers had gathered ‘powerful evidence’ on the long hours worked by some members, and in particular the lack of time they were allowed at handover to discuss vital information. Such practices are now being challenged, she said. The campaign is due to be rolled out to all trusts in Northern Ireland from next week.
Nurse Helen is back in the driving seat after successful campaign
APEX
District nurse Helen Nicholds, pictured, who has type 1 diabetes, is back behind the wheel after successfully appealing a driving ban imposed by the DVLA after she had two hypoglycaemic events. Ms Nicholds, who is insulin-dependent, had her license revoked in October 2014 after declaring two night-time hypos, which she had when under stress revising for a prescribing exam and during a heatwave. A 2011 European Union directive states a person with insulin-dependent diabetes cannot drive if they have two severe hypos in a year. Ms Nicholds has started a petition to change the rules. Go to tinyurl.com/A4DD-petition
NURSING STANDARD aprilNo29other :: vol 29without no 35 permission. :: 2015 7 Downloaded from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Dec 02, 2015. For personal use only. uses Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
