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Nurses deserve a fair pay deal says RCN

Are nurses well paid? In his Irish News column Newton Emerson argued they are, earning more than the median household income in Northern Ireland. Today Janice Smyth, Director of the Royal College of Nursing Northern Ireland, takes issue with last Thursday's column, arguing that nurses deserve a fair deal for the work they do.

Janice Smyth, Director of the Royal College of Nursing Northern Ireland
Janice Smyth, Director of the Royal College of Nursing Northern Ireland Janice Smyth, Director of the Royal College of Nursing Northern Ireland

Until Friday, Northern Ireland was the only part of the UK in which nurses had not received any pay award this year. Nurses here are at least 10 per cent worse off in real terms than they were in 2008 and are now paid less than their counterparts in England, Scotland and Wales. Today, a staff nurse in Northern Ireland is paid £279 a year less than in England and £561 a year less than in Scotland.

Cost saving measures have slowed recruitment, prevented vacant posts from being filled and have created an over-reliance on nurse banks. There has been an absence of any meaningful workforce planning, a decimation of nursing teams, and a significant reduction in education and development budgets. This is having a serious impact on the nursing profession here and, more importantly, on the profession’s ability to provide nursing care to patients.

The combination of poor workforce planning, cost saving measures, increasing demand for nursing care, staff shortages, and lack of service reform and modernisation have all taken their toll; at a time when we have 1500 registered nurse vacancies, nurses are now seeking employment elsewhere.

Newton Emerson claims that nurses are “not badly paid”. He is entitled to his opinion. However, his article contains numerous misleading statements and factual inaccuracies that do need to be corrected.

There are 18,633 nurses employed within the health service in Northern Ireland. The majority of nurses are in the lowest pay band, with a starting salary of £21,478 per year. A nurse can progress through the pay scale and, with satisfactory performance, will reach the top of the scale over a seven year period to earn £27,909. A higher percentage of registered nurses (58 per cent) are employed at the lowest pay band (band 5) in Northern Ireland than is the case in the other countries of the UK. Nurses earning this level of pay are regularly in charge of our hospital wards and are responsible both for managing and supervising a team and for the care of a group of patients.

Northern Ireland has a number of specialist nurses who have undergone postgraduate study at university and gained a specialist practice qualification. The numbers of specialist nurses trained in Northern Ireland has fallen.The majority of specialist nurses in Northern Ireland earn between £25,783 and £34,530. These nurses carry out roles in, for example, palliative and end of life care, district nursing and specialist cardiac care. Evidence confirms that the care provided by specialist nurses improve outcomes for patients.

Around 15 per cent of nurses are in management roles, whereby they manage a team of staff. These include, for example, ward sisters, charge nurses and district nursing team leaders. These nurses earn £30,764, progressing through the pay scale over an eight year period to £40,558. The majority of nurses in these roles are required to provide clinical care alongside managing a team of around 30 staff.

There is no nursing sister in Northern Ireland earning up to £98,453 and there are no matron posts in Northern Ireland.

Nurses do not automatically progress from a starting salary of £21,478 through the various pay bands. Nurses are recruited to posts through job advertisements and recruitment and selection procedures.

DHSSPS figures confirm that there are no nursing posts in Northern Ireland that attract a salary on the upper Agenda for Change level of £98,453. Like other professions, nurses have incremental pay points within a structured pay scale that form part of the terms and conditions detailed in their contract of employment. Non-payment of these incremental pay points could constitute a breach of contract and result in legal proceedings. It is disingenuous to refer to incremental progression as pay rises. Professionals working in other parts of the public sector in Northern Ireland have not been subjected to this treatment.

The percentage of nurses struggling to pay gas and electricity bills or meet childcare costs is now significantly higher in Northern Ireland than in the other UK countries. To some, these might be trivial concerns; to a workforce that is 92 per cent female, in which nurses are often the sole breadwinner, they indicate the ways in which nurses are being pushed to the brink.

Nurses are highly trained, graduate professionals with increasingly onerous responsibilities who have, unlike other comparable professional groups in Northern Ireland, seen their pay largely frozen since 2010. Exploiting the goodwill, professionalism and caring nature of nurses must stop. They deserve to be paid fairly for the work they do.

The article refers to “relatively muted support at Stormont” for the RCN’s campaign for fair pay for nurses. In fact, Sinn Féin, the SDLP, Ulster Unionist Party, UKIP and the Green Party have all endorsed our campaign, as have five Alliance Assembly members and two from the DUP. The support of 65 MLAs out of a total of 108, and of five of the nine Assembly parties, cannot reasonably be described as “muted”.

The Irish News article claims that MLAs “are being paid less than some nursing sisters”. A nursing sister or ward manager earns a maximum salary of £40,558. According to information published by the Northern Ireland Assembly, the current basic salary for an MLA is £48,000, with some earning significantly more than this. MLAs are well aware that they are not paid less than some nursing sisters.

The article also claims that the RCN in Northern Ireland is threatening to strike over fair pay. A cursory glance at the information published by the RCN recently would have revealed that we are making it abundantly clear that we are balloting our members on industrial action short of strike action.

The decision taken by RCN Council to authorise a ballot of members in Northern Ireland on taking industrial action is unprecedented. The one per cent pay award that the RCN is committed to securing on behalf of its members amounts to an additional £5 per week or so for most nurses.

After years of pay freezes and in the face of ever-increasing pressures at work, nurses and the public know they are worth it. This is not an unreasonable demand. It is incomprehensible and insulting to suggest that it is. The growing pay differential with the rest of the UK will do nothing to recruit and retain the nurses so badly needed in Northern Ireland.