NHS Nurse asks Strangers for Donations

[borcy]

JagLover said:

Bussolini said:

JagLover said:

Weren't you the one concerned about a rising deficit?. How is the deficit going to do if we pay nurses enough money to cover all the lifestyle choices this Nurse has made?.

Many people earn less than this, but they have a partner to help cover costs and so live comfortable lives.

It is worth repeating that she is not on the bread line as she has a decent salary and a final salary pension scheme on top. I have often thought the government should offer a different scheme to all such "underpaid public sector workers". An extra £3k per annum, say, in pay and then they only get a defined contribution scheme with an employer 5% contribution.

No, I was concerned with pointing out the hypocrisy of the Tories.

You are again assuming she is in the position she is in due to poor lifestyle choices. What if she was living a comfortable life, had a kid, and then her partner flunked off leaving her a single mother with a kid living in London? Is your suggestion that she should go find herself a nice man with a good wage to look after her? I would suggest she should be able to look after herself.

We don't know her individual circumstances so shouldn't be too judgemental. But if she was a widow she would have no doubt received a life insurance payout. If she was divorced, and had married someone able to provide for a family, she would be receiving child maintenance. This all smacks of someone making poor life choices to me.

Bussolini said:

Yes, gold plated public sector pensions need looked at. However, you cannot criticize her for contributing to her pension - you would then criticize her for insufficient savings in retirement.

A pension is only part of the income you need to live on in retirement. Most people's main preparation for retirement will be to pay off the mortgage. Certainly defined contribution pension pots are going to be small for most people.

However the point was more in general that in these threads people declare that such workers are underpaid without factoring in a pension that is worth many £, thousands per annum.

Poor life choices or do you mean things that happened that she's had to deal with?

[Oakey]

This was the blurb on her GoFundMe page;

GoFundMe said:

This gofund me page has been set up to support Sparkly Girl and her Neurotypical parent. NTP is a Cardiology Nurse of 16 years who works full time and is a devoted mother to Sparks. She tends to rant and ramble a lot on Twitter and often doesn’t make a lot of sense but she has a lot of compassion and is hella funny Thanks to the ineptitude of the current UK government she struggles to pay her bills but always ensures that Sparks has what she needs. If you can help her with just a little she would really really appreciate it and she will definitely pay it forward in positivity and pixie dust. Many Sparkles to you all

I suspect this was one of those poorly thought out political statements that backfired, even the Mirror seems to have backpedalled and removed the article.

[Sway]

Bussolini said:

Sway said:

Same as a lot of the private sector.

Difference being, no guaranteed pay rises annually within band. No staggeringly vast employer with hundreds of routes to progress through bands. Etc.

Thing is, if the private sector couldn't recruit it would increase salaries. The NHS instead has to spend huge sums of cash on expensive agency nurses rather than paying a proper salary that would attract graduates into nursing. (Alternative, vocational training for nurses rather than a graduate route).

Yet the unskilled private sector hasn't needed to - it's merely imported those who will accept NMW, which has become the norm.

I believe the vocational route has been reopened?

I'm not saying the NHS is perfect - you only need to see my previous posts on it to see my personal view is it should be destroyed and rebuilt completely differently - it's simply not an integrated system, and it's incredibly important that it becomes one.

The point, is that any nurse has benefits and opportunities that simply aren't available to well over half the population. That's not a bad thing - but the fact remains that despite the logic, there are more people in London earning NMW and managing than anywhere else in the country, despite it's massive costs in certain areas.

This nurse, is already better off than 60% of the population - and has the ability to be better off than even more. She's one of the lucky ones - even if she can't see it, or can't identify the opportunities she has.

[pequod]

Badda said:

pequod said:

borcy said:

pequod said:

I don't know the circumstances of this nurse, and frankly can't be bothered to invest time finding out, but she is one of millions of young ladies who have the 'want it all and want it now' mentality that social norms back in the dark ages prevented, including the so-called shotgun weddings.

I shan't be donating!

You know nothing of her circumstances yet know she wants it all and wants it now?

If you read my post I am not singling her out but simply highlighting that a single mother with a career and cannot make ends meet, apparently, is a function of modern society and there are a hell of lot more that don't even bother with the 'career' or husband/partner bit but expect to still have the 'want it all and want it now' mentality and I haven't even started on foreign holidays ... 'cos they so need a break!

HTH

I’ve never heard of a nurse as being a career for those who ‘want it all’.

Your full post about her requiring a husband highlights what a sheltered person you are. You have no idea what it’s like in the real world (wouldn’t surprise me if you live with mother still).

Nursing is a perfectly acceptable career as far as I am concerned although you appear not to agree, but requesting donations to support her apparent financial situation suggests to me she is in need of another income provider and that used to be in the form of a husband/partner! If the father has disappeared, for whatever reason, provisions should be in place to support their offspring and may well be happening and given the child is autistic there will be additional support from the state.

As for your second, FRO, you don't know me or my circumstances. Stick to the topic.

HTH

[Bussolini]

pequod said:

Nursing is a perfectly acceptable career as far as I am concerned although you appear not to agree, but requesting donations to support her apparent financial situation suggests to me she is in need of another income provider and that used to be in the form of a husband/partner! If the father has disappeared, for whatever reason, provisions should be in place to support their offspring and may well be happening and given the child is autistic there will be additional support from the state.

As for your second, FRO, you don't know me or my circumstances. Stick to the topic.

HTH

Can you not see why "you need a man dear" is not an acceptable solution?

[JagLover]

Bussolini said:

Can you not see why "you need a man dear" is not an acceptable solution?

Not really

Most households are dual income and that helps to set house prices and rents as they are. To pay public sector salaries sufficient that each public sector worker could afford to live on their own would bankrupt the country.

If she doesn't want to take up with a new man she could house share with a friend.

[pequod]

Bussolini said:

Can you not see why "you need a man dear" is not an acceptable solution?

Didn't used to be unacceptable which was the point I was making but I accept that this old fashioned idea in no longer a 'solution' instead we have a nurse on £30k+ begging for money!

Funny 'new' world, eh?

[valiant]

Bussolini said:

As we said before, we do not know the circumstances that led her to being a single mother living in London. We don't know what she spends her money on. However I can see how £2k take home isn't going to go far in London with her stated costs of £670 rent £600 childcare £579 travel - before food, council tax, etc. etc. etc.. She isn't exactly living lavishly.

Also, again, I am not saying she should be begging. I'm just saying it shines a spotlight that something isn't working - whether that's our welfare state, or how we pay our nurses. Nursing should not be a job where people can only scrape by doing. It isn't waiting tables or stacking shelves. It is a career, not a job.

She ain’t renting in London for under £700 p/m unless she’s got a flat-share or lucked out on a studio flat. As she’s got a child I imagine she has a 1-2 bed flat somewhere commutable hence the high travel costs.

[hutchst]

If only we had a bus, full of money

[Mothersruin]

Sten. said:

Mothersruin said:

Sten. said:

Oakey said:

Why is she only working a 37.5hr week, is that standard hours for a nurse?

Yes, most work plenty of overtime/bank work on top of that though.

What's 'Bank' work?

I believe it's effectively a zero hours contract separate to your main contract where you can take on extra shifts when they are available. Basically overtime, but on a separate payslip.

Edited by Sten. on Wednesday 23 October 13:42

Thanks, didn't know.

So she could have another payslip?

[Thankyou4calling]

We clearly aren’t getting anything like the full picture here.

£2049 salary minus £670 rent, £579 travel, £600 childcare leaves exactly £200 a month to cover;

Council tax (£100)
Food. (£100)
Electric (£50)
Gas. (£20)
Water. (£20)
Phone. (£20)

All of that ( minimum guesses) adds up to £310 per month so yes, she either needs to earn or beg more or spend less.

My guess is fake news.

[menousername]

Bussolini said:

Thing is, if the private sector couldn't recruit it would increase salaries. The NHS instead has to spend huge sums of cash on expensive agency nurses rather than paying a proper salary that would attract graduates into nursing. (Alternative, vocational training for nurses rather than a graduate route).

Mostly its paying agency because its unorganised, or worse, its systemic.

Its quite common for nurses to cover their 37.5 hours full time over 3 shifts, sometimes just comprised of weekend and night-shifts, which IUI involves unsociable hours pay.

It is quite common for them to also do a shift or two more in the week as agency / locum.

Sometimes that can even be in the same trust.

The agency work is to fill the gaps, drawing in other nurses from other hospitals who are doing the same thing. Hospitals within the same trusts paying the same nurses through agencies.

Not denying the work is important, difficult, etc. But obviously hugely unorganised via short-term planning.

[Oakey]

Thankyou4calling said:

We clearly aren’t getting anything like the full picture here.

£2049 salary minus £670 rent, £579 travel, £600 childcare leaves exactly £200 a month to cover;

Council tax (£100)
Food. (£100)
Electric (£50)
Gas. (£20)
Water. (£20)
Phone. (£20)

All of that ( minimum guesses) adds up to £310 per month so yes, she either needs to earn or beg more or spend less.

My guess is fake news.

What we aren't getting is the inclusion of the overtime she says she works, nor the child benefit / child tax credit she likely receives. Is the £275 a month she pays into her pension taken out of the £2049 or before she's left with that?

Is overtime paid at her normal rate or more?

[Sheepshanks]

Oakey said:

What we aren't getting is the inclusion of the overtime she says she works, nor the child benefit / child tax credit she likely receives. Is the £275 a month she pays into her pension taken out of the £2049 or before she's left with that?

Is overtime paid at her normal rate or more?

£2049 is what she's left with. She should get +50% for overtime.

There's a few hundred quid of additional payments on her payslip but she blanked them out for some reason. As well as her basic gross she'll be getting some level of London weighting - I'd have thought that would make up most of the difference between her noted gross pay £30K/yr) and what she's actually getting.

There's far too many unknowns in this story to understand it - I imagine she is struggling, but so are millions of others.

[andy_s]

Bussolini said:

As we said before, we do not know the circumstances that led her to being a single mother living in London. We don't know what she spends her money on. However I can see how £2k take home isn't going to go far in London with her stated costs of £670 rent £600 childcare £579 travel - before food, council tax, etc. etc. etc.. She isn't exactly living lavishly.

Also, again, I am not saying she should be begging. I'm just saying it shines a spotlight that something isn't working - whether that's our welfare state, or how we pay our nurses. Nursing should not be a job where people can only scrape by doing. It isn't waiting tables or stacking shelves. It is a career, not a job.

I’m saying your spotlight is dull and poorly focussed. I agree about nurses pay in general, but to extrapolate this one case is a mistake, in the classic sense.

[Bussolini]

andy_s said:

I’m saying your spotlight is dull and poorly focussed. I agree about nurses pay in general, but to extrapolate this one case is a mistake, in the classic sense.

That's a fair comment. We shouldn't jump to conclusions either way on the basis of such limited information. I can, however, sympathize as to the difficulties of being a single mother in London working shifts on 30k.

[vonuber]

Although surely it's moot anyway, as post brexit there will be loads more money for the NHS, so she will get a pay rise.

[pequod]

vonuber said:

Although surely it's moot anyway, as post brexit there will be loads more money for the NHS, so she will get a pay rise.

American, or Chinese?

[Murph7355]

Sheepshanks said:

Oakey said:

What we aren't getting is the inclusion of the overtime she says she works, nor the child benefit / child tax credit she likely receives. Is the £275 a month she pays into her pension taken out of the £2049 or before she's left with that?

Is overtime paid at her normal rate or more?

£2049 is what she's left with. She should get +50% for overtime.

There's a few hundred quid of additional payments on her payslip but she blanked them out for some reason. As well as her basic gross she'll be getting some level of London weighting - I'd have thought that would make up most of the difference between her noted gross pay £30K/yr) and what she's actually getting.

There's far too many unknowns in this story to understand it - I imagine she is struggling, but so are millions of others.

If the unknowns were known the begging letter probably wouldn't be quite so effective (assuming it is).