Your Chair of Council and I wrote to the Prime Minister last week to demand the start of an honest conversation around the value of nursing staff.
In our open letter, we are clear that any discussion about pay and value must be conducted with integrity and with our voices heard loud and clear. Discussing pay without the context of real numbers, combined with a suggestion of a pay freeze, is totally out of step with the needs of our community and what the public supports.
The Prime Minister’s experience of nursing care while ill with COVID-19 has led to his gratitude to those staff. Now, that gratitude needs to translate into real and tangible support for the profession.
All governments must show nursing staff the same respect that the public does when it comes to being rewarded adequately and fairly for the work you do. You are working extremely hard and are still very much underpaid for that work in our highly skilled profession.
We are fighting to help ensure that your place of work is safe, that you are given meaningful reward for your contribution and that our profession receives the respect it deserves.
We have emailed you a survey asking you to share your needs and expectations about the future of nursing. As your professional body and trade union, this is a key part of how we make change happen. By putting your concerns front and centre.
This is just the next step in a series of activities in which we really need to hear from you – all of you – about what you need and what you want. Given the diversity of our community, this means at certain points there will be specific opportunities depending on your experiences – our students, for example.
Sharing our experiences and aspirations core to the ongoing conversation we need to keep having about how we work together to ensure you are safe, valued and respected. This pandemic has shown the wider world what we do, but as we move forward, there are still long-held concerns that need to be addressed.
We speak most powerfully when our members’ experiences are at the heart of everything we do. Use your voice and be heard. Together, we will build a better future for nursing.
In our open letter, we are clear that any discussion about pay and value must be conducted with integrity and with our voices heard loud and clear. Discussing pay without the context of real numbers, combined with a suggestion of a pay freeze, is totally out of step with the needs of our community and what the public supports.
The Prime Minister’s experience of nursing care while ill with COVID-19 has led to his gratitude to those staff. Now, that gratitude needs to translate into real and tangible support for the profession.
All governments must show nursing staff the same respect that the public does when it comes to being rewarded adequately and fairly for the work you do. You are working extremely hard and are still very much underpaid for that work in our highly skilled profession.
We are fighting to help ensure that your place of work is safe, that you are given meaningful reward for your contribution and that our profession receives the respect it deserves.
We have emailed you a survey asking you to share your needs and expectations about the future of nursing. As your professional body and trade union, this is a key part of how we make change happen. By putting your concerns front and centre.
This is just the next step in a series of activities in which we really need to hear from you – all of you – about what you need and what you want. Given the diversity of our community, this means at certain points there will be specific opportunities depending on your experiences – our students, for example.
Sharing our experiences and aspirations core to the ongoing conversation we need to keep having about how we work together to ensure you are safe, valued and respected. This pandemic has shown the wider world what we do, but as we move forward, there are still long-held concerns that need to be addressed.
We speak most powerfully when our members’ experiences are at the heart of everything we do. Use your voice and be heard. Together, we will build a better future for nursing.
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