One per cent pay restraint is harming nurses, their families and the whole NHS, write Anna Lynch and Danielle Tiplady
One of us trained to be a nurse under a Labour government and, as a student nurse, the pay cap for nurses was not just scrapped by Labour, it was blown out of the water with a 12 per cent pay rise. This sat alongside a fully resourced plan for the National Health Service. It was not just a slogan of the 1997 campaign to ‘save the NHS’ – it was its raison d’être. Nurses did not, and do not, just vote Labour for the pay rises. We are looking – like the wider electorate – for much more; we want credible plans for the NHS.
Starting work in the NHS at this time was a time of change: the traditional metal framed beds were replaced by modern electric beds, staffing increased and much more besides. It was not rocket science that investing in modern beds that could lift and turn patients would not only enhance patient experience but reduce the effects of difficult patient handling on nurses’ backs that results in time off work and limits nurses’ careers.
In addition, the role of the nurse also expanded with new opportunities through the creation of clinical nurse specialists and consultant nurses. We became an attractive and confident professional workforce with the introduction of degrees bringing us up to the level of occupational therapists and physiotherapists. The alternative entries to nursing also continued and expanded with paid secondments for healthcare assistants and two-year postgraduate diplomas on par with the Postgraduate Certificate in Education for teachers.
Many forget what Labour did for nursing and are quick to trash what impact this had for nurses and their patients. We take the existence of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellent, commonly known as Nice, for granted, but pre-1997 the governance of healthcare policy was not fit for purpose and people – invariably the poorest – missed out on much-needed drugs and treatments.
Labour delivered time and time again for the NHS and was the effective midwife in ensuring nurses were looked after not just through pay but opportunities with career-enhancing training and the good living standards a Labour government brings.
The other of us began training since 2010. Bit by bit, the Conservatives have been dismantling the nursing profession; not just by capping public sector pay at one per cent, but inflicting a number of other austerity measures throughout the service. Shamefully, those who want to train after us will no longer get the bursaries that make access into the profession both egalitarian and attractive. Brexit makes the need to stabilise the supply of nurses more necessary and this cut more spurious.
Not only does seven years of a one per cent pay cap bite hard, but health workers must work harder too, because we have proportionately fewer colleagues and the costs outside work are mounting. The impact of a Conservative government – cuts in child tax credits and family allowance, zero hour contracts, the lack of affordable key worker housing, the rising cost of public transport, the inflation in food prices and the promise of yet more austerity – continues unabated. These hit public service workers and their families disproportionately.
We fully support the lifting of the one per cent pay cap (but we would, wouldn’t we?) but we are heartened that the 2017 election shows the public are on side. The new parliament provides an opportunity for change in the first autumn budget. Both Labour and other opposition members of parliament are with us. In the election, Theresa May’s flat-footed behaviour on this issue cost her party dear. The hope is a handful of ories find their conscience and join the pressure mounting for the government to U-turn.
In the coming weeks and months, we need to see this public and political support on all the airwaves. The pressure must be maintained in the run-up to the first autumn budget. Winning the argument does not matter if we do not win the change.
Ultimately, we believe that nurses and their families need not just the cap lifted but a Labour government that truly believes in investing in the NHS and its employees. Changing Tory policy does not stop that, but it is the first logical step to Labour saving the NHS we all love.
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Anna Lynch and Danielle Tiplady are both Royal College of Nursing activists