Nursing morale ‘at all-time low’ over pay and staffing
Friday 21st August 2009, 2:58PM BST.
Health Minister Anne Pryke
NURSING morale is at an all-time low, nursing associations said today, as they stepped up pressure on the Health Minister for better pay and conditions.
On Monday, representatives of the Royal College of Nursing and the Jersey Nursing Association met Health Minister Anne Pryke to discuss concerns about the recruitment and retention of staff.
They say that earlier this month there were 65 nursing vacancies at Health – and it is becoming harder and harder to get staff to come to Jersey.
The associations are now calling for nursing to be viewed as a special case when a final decision is made on a new pay deal for States employees.
A spokesman for Health said that they were preparing a response.
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Is it any surprise? The cost of living over here is appalling and nurses aren’t very well paid and they also have to work unsocial hours. Why work at the hospital when you can get more money for less effort in other areas?
Many moons ago when nursing was held in higher regard there was a linkage between them and the police and fireservice as regards pay. Unfortunately someone decided to get rid of this link and now you can see the consequences as far as I am concerned.
Luckily for the health department nurses are a caring profession and won’t go on stike unlike others who aren’t so caring. Maybe this is what it will take for those in charge to finally get the message? I myself wouldn’t blame them one bit if they were to go down this route.
I view them as overworked and underpaid and I would get rid of much of the pen pushing supervisors/management/advisors which seems to be spreading to all areas at present. This would free up some big money to reward those at the sharp end and help to rebuild broken moral.
Pay poor wages and you will get few takers, even those from third world countries won’t bother coming here when they can earn better money in the US, for example, and have cheap affordable accommodaton, and consumable items etc. Add in the exortbitant cost of travel to and from Jersey and it is a bit of a none starter as ar as I am concerned.
Will those in charge listen? I doubt it. Much of what I have seen over here consists of fire fighting instead of getting to grips with major issues. Better to carry on as long as possible then tinker a bit around the edges to keep it going till the next blip in the system me thinks. Or they could always get some consultants in to tell the the best way to go. I wonder what they will do…..
Pictures of someone playing the fiddle whilst Rome burns keep coming into my mind.
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One point about retention of staff. We the day surgery unit have successfully only retained one member of staff in the unit since it started. Thats only a small turn over of 20 staff in 2 years! Oh and another thing a recent ad in Ireland to recruit attracted exactly… no one.
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correct adrian i agree.
its the comment cant get people to come here that gets me.
think twice, train local.
mind you its not to say that when the local is trained they move off to a more affordable , more of a quality of life thats not slowly being eroded as ours is .
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it will always be dificult to assurtain what is in the kitty for pay awards unless and untill all detail of public expendicture is made available on line.It is of course our money.
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Thats funny because when I wrote to enquire for a job a few months ago nobody would give me the time of day
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The comment about the same job advertised in Ireland not attracting anyone either, is revealing. There is big money to be earned in nursing these days if you are prepared to relocate to a wealthy and developing country such as are found in the Middle East.(Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States spring to mind) and the tax free salary and perks of expatriate life can outweigh the downside and any potential risk of such a relocation.
Nurses are dedicated people and as such money and perks are not always the motivation, but working with the poor in a third world scenario maybe a personal preference when it comes to job satisfaction?
I seem to remember there used to be a residential facility in St Helier for single nurses in training and this training function might be worth considering as a way to boost numbers, but the training offered needs to be excellent, even if the possibility is that when trained you might loose the majority to other jurisdictions.
Certainly, to attract the best trained nurses maybe the whole current package of incentives needs to be revised bearing in mind the competition above mentioned?
Penny pinching can be a false economy when it comes to some areas of human activity, and I would have thought nursing is right up there given the responsibility that goes with the job!After all in these litigious times if mistakes are made, that can also be expensive!
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More shroud waving from Health staff.
This is the usual RCN/JNA knee jerk response and negotiating position. Three years ago when they removed the highly effective Director of Nursing by supporting a no confidence vote because she was trying to improve nursing standards they were saying the same thing.
It’s a form of bullying, don’t believe it for a minute.
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I’m surprised anyone goes into nursing anymore. I’m the daughter of a nurse, as are 3 of my friends and all of us were taught from the day dot to NOT go into nursing… only due to the way the Government treated nurses. No-one minded me pursuing medicine but not nursing.
This was in the UK but the education system and most other trends regarding nursing are the same in Jersey as the UK. Governments just cannot seem to get how important nurses are and it’s quite unbelievable.
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The idea to train locally is great, however, it takes 4 years to train a nurse in Jersey, following the current Open University programme. Jersey General hospital carry out a very limited number of surgical procedures and medical care, we need health professionals from elsewhere to bring in wider experience. Nurses are also paid less then their allied health colleague and an average 7% less then in England. Staff accommodation is certainly not attractive and there are few child care providers offering working hours that mirror shift patterns. It is great to live by the beach, but this is what it costs per month: rent (2 bed accommodation)£1200, utility bills £100, food £500, childcare £900, parking £90, etc, etc. It is expensive living here and that is that!!!
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I for one would return to Jersey to work if the States would allow us to buy property there far sooner than what is currently applicable.
As it is, I NOW own a large house in the Uk, have a partner and a dog – but couldn’t forsee us returning to the island where we would HAVE to rent for many years before becoming eligable to buy a house. We are approaching our early 40′s and do not want to feel as though we have to start all over again with housing if we came back to the island.
Is it any wonder why people don’t want to come over and settle there??
I would certainly consider returning if housing regs were relaxed for all essential employees and property purchasing could happen a lot sooner than the standard 10 years.
Preposterous, really!!
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jersy nurse(9)
the cost of living here sums it up why would anyone care to come here with the informative comment you make .
thankyou for sticking it out , and thanks to all who come here to look after us.
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We moved to Canada after 7 years nursing on the island-I am now on 10k a year more here and our payrises don’t take years to negotiate-here nurses are valued and it is deemed a valued profession to be in-recruitment and retention is a world wide issue-when is Jersey going to wake up and realise that being a pretty island is just not enough for people to move their whole lives for?With regards to training locally-ask the girls who spent 3 years training only to be kicked off for failing an essay and not getting a second chance to resit-and if there were issues with these trainees why did it not get picked up till their 3rd year?And as for the removal of a highly effective director of nursing-how insulting was she to allow nurses to assess health care assisitants to undertake basic nursing roles and then not allow them to carry them out-shows how much confidence she had in excellent nursing staff!Whilst there are some things I miss,I am so glad to be somewhere where I finally feel valued as a nurse!I have every sympathy for my ex colleagues.Oh and my 4 months worth of back pay from last year would be nice too!
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The RCN/JNA say that Jersey can’t recruit nurses because we are falling so far behind the UK, then we have a number of ex murses bleating about the amount they were paid.
A little bit of research (surprised the JEP didn’t find this out themselves)reveals some interesting information.
Basic Nurse UK salary £20,710 – £26,839
Basic Nurse Jersey salary £33,516 – £35,564 plus pensionable extra duty payments
Senior Staff Nurse UK salary £24,831 – £33,436
Senior Staff Nurse Jersey £38,980 – £41,512 plus pensionable extra duty payments
Sister/Charge Nurse UK salary £29,789 – £39,273
Sister/Cahrge Nurse Jersey £44,551 – £47,349 plus pensionable extra duty payments
Extra duty payments in Jersey usually add upto an extra £6,000 to annual salary.
Judge for yourselves readers.
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Adrian, in another column “how much will we have to pay” you berate the J Cats as they earn so much. Those J Cats are nurses, which as some of them have pointed out, aren’t that well paid. You then completely contradict yourself at the top of the page.
Gross Misconduct, well spotted about wages. You fail to mention avarage house prices though.
Jersey £500K, UK £180K….wow poor nurse earns £10K extra in Jersey. Please don’t tell them they can get the boat out if they don’t like it….
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#13 gross misconduct
I must accuse you of having the wrong numbers. As a senior staff nurse myself I bring you the correct numbers;
Basic Nurse earns £28,107 (starting wage after 3-4 years in university with a diploma or degree) with yearly increases of £500 for 4 years until you become a grade 4 senior nurse ande then you earn £33,516 with yearly increases of £670 (compare this with U.K. senior nurse earns £33,436 and add on our increased cost of living in the shape of ridicilous houseprices (if you ever manage to save up to a 10-20% deposit that is!), rental cost and hugely inflated foodprices (loaf of bread in the U.K. £0.50 Jersey £1.80, I mean come on!))
If you are as lucky as banking yourself a junior sister or even a sisters post (trust me, I have all the right qualifications and a wide experience and have been to at least 3 interviews for sisters posts and been declined on all of them (and yes i did pretty darn well on all the interviews)), then maybe you can start looking for a house to buy as you will earn £38,980 as a starting salary, but these posts are very far and few.
However, there is a slight problem there as well.. To keep your J-cat status you must work full time and with nursing being a dominant female profession many of us will at some point have to go on maternity leave and with the Nurse’s generous (not) maternity leave agreement; 18 weeks half pay (ok, the first 4 weeks you get full pay basic salary) and don’t you dare get ill during your pregnancy because then you must start your maternity leave early! Talking from my own experience, by the time my baby was born I had 3 weeks left of my maternity leave and fully breastfeeding. Great? I was lucky as married to a Jerseyman so was able to go part time. Still, I pay about £550 month in childcare fees. I can’t even imagine how much it would cost if I was working full time!
With all this in view we are now planning on leaving Jersey, lovely beaches and good dining experiences isn’t everything in life unfortunately.
We are moving up to Sweden where I will earn 2/3 of what I earn here and our new house will only cost £100,000 (4-5 bedrooms, 2 lounges, massive eat-in kitchen, huge garden, double garage, quiet area near schools, lakes and rivers, forests, skiing slopes and amusement parks and not the least great shopping! IKEA anyone?).
And believe this; fulltime nursery place is maximum £100 A MONTH! And not to talk about maternity/paternity leave: 80% pay for 18 months to share between the both of you, and both Mum and Dad can be off on maternity/paternity leave at the sime time. Talk about prioritising the family life!
SO.. I AM TAKING THAT FERRY!!
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I think after seeing some of the postings above that the area where this matter needs attention is in the “Perks” side of the salary and pensions on offer.
There are disparities in these salary “Add ons” between different sectors of Public Employee that are difficult to explain with regard to the logic of them applying to some sectors of activity and not to others.
As well as addressing some of these anomalies where the nursing sector may be loosing out, maybe, like the Australian system of immigration, J category status should be progressive and selective, favoring some job sectors which are regarded as “More essential” than others, particularly with regard to those in jobs where ongoing retention of experienced staff is an issue.
Such changes could include reducing the residential qualifying period to five years for trained/training front-line medical staff, or allowing qualifying years under the 10 year rule to be cumulative for the same medical staff,ignoring any off island residency breaks. The latter might encourage trained nurses who have moved off island as a result of career progression to return later in their careers?
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Well said Senior nurse for 6y i was wondering where the earlier figures came from as my partner is a nurse and certainly does not earn as much as that. And I’m not sure what those extra duty payments are, perhaps they meant overtime where people do more work to try and earn a decent salary. Additionally, as we have just returned to the island she was put on the lowest grade increment ie starting again, even though she has over 15 years experience and add the 13 hour shifts and there is not much of an incentive to work here especially if newcomers are treated like this. It was also interesting to find out that her application went through 4 people in HR and still took months to process and they couldnt even spell her name correctly on the contract. Perhaps a review should be done of all the administrative positions and see how many are actually needed before we end up with an NHS situation where all the money wasted goes on pen pushers and bureaucracy!
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#13 gross misconduct-
Don’t forget that,unlike the UK,the chance for progression is very limited-so despite being more wualified than half the sisters in my department,there was absolutely no chance of promotion unless someone fell of the perch!Therefore you’re on that top increment of the basic salary until you die,change jobs completely or leave!Had I stayed in the UK prior to moving to Jersey,I would have been earning more as I would have had a fair chance at promotion.I also don’t think I ever earned 38k even with loads of night shifts thrown in for good measure-so I’d love to know where you got your info on-I also stopped “winging” and uprooted my family to move to somewhere where they could have a better life!
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Both Senior Nurse and Partner of Nurse make a very good case for the problem not being just the basic salary scales but the “Add On’s” and the quality of life that are important these days. The Swedish comparison is also an eye opener, but then Sweden is the land of Volvo and Saab where the unions were so strong that it was impossible to stop over production or downsize workforces (Full employment was a legal right) when those businesses actually needed to do that.
They got through it, but only just, and largely because their population is relatively small in Nation terms, and only by being bailed out.I would investigate those long dark winter days however as you may find a holiday home further South a requirement and not just a shrewd investment! Houses there are larger because you spend more time in them!The skiing is a great perk, and I think the Fort Regent people should note that comment!
What surprises me are the comments about the cost of child care, I would have thought operating a free creche and pre-school facility for Hospital Staff on site would have been a great training opportunity for registered childminders and nursery and/or pediatric nurses? Maybe some of those HR bodies should be redeployed?
There was an interesting Management exercise carried out in one of the Car Rental companies in the 1980′s where the top man:
a)Abolished chairs in business meetings.
b)Got rid of the HR department and replaced it with an answer-phone!
The meetings idea was a huge success as suddenly there were very few, but highly focused, business meetings, releasing everyone to get on with what they were actually employed to do! (It received a mixed reception with staff)
The HR department was not missed at all!(Pensions and Salaries were made the responsibility of the Company Secretary and the social aspects were split between the Staff Club and one sub contracted psychologist!)
As an efficiency experiment it was an eye opener,as a social experiment it was perhaps not so successful.
Wherever you get bureaucracy(And in Hospitals as in the Law the paperwork,or computer work, file notes and follow up have to be accurate and efficient)you will always get the “Empire building” principle taking over.The only way to prevent over manning is to constantly review these areas on an ongoing basis.
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They’ve talked about a creche at the hospital for ages,when my youngest was born,not only did I get less maternity leave than my sister in law who’s a nurse in the UK-about half the amount-it was cheaper for my husband to go part time and then work opposite shifts for 3 years than fork out upto 1000 pounds a month in childcare.I was fortunate to have an excellent friend who looked after my youngest as required for me-I know loads of nurses in Jersey for whom childcare has been a nightmare!
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Well Ex Jersey Nurse, let’s hope our new Minister has seen this and taken note.Even if such a scheme were set up to train and assess registered child minders it would be worth offering it as a free perk of a nurses salary package!There has to be a place for such a facility, which could with very little expenditure be “State of the Art”.
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The Jersey myth of career enhancing opportunities for skilled nursing staff has been propagated over the decades. The adverts read of idyllic beaches, friendly locals and professional careers development.. Sadly Jersey has become the graveyard of careers, opportunity and hope!
The exploitation of the goodwill of Nursing staff can be clearly seen when it is compared to the other frontline services (police, fire, prison and ambulance services).
The later named services can offer in addition to basic pay FREE Health care, Opticians, dental and early pensionable retirement at 55 years of age..
Is there a problem with staff retention… well the short answer is Yes.. Some areas see max exodus of staff, because of the dictatorial and inflexible management on the ward and the ivory towers.. Staff that do leave often say nothing on the exit interviews as they wish to get a good reference on future interviews (culture of fear). Those whom wish to stay in the Island keep quiet for fear of being marginalised and moved to an area that they are comfortable with.
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To Graveyard (22) – I would just like to correct your point about police, fire and ambulance. They do not receive any of those perks mentioned and as for the early retirement these are very physical jobs and I would like to see anyone who thinks it is reasonable to make staff carry on until 65 do it yourselves. Early retirement is not a perk. Like the nurses, it is high levels of overtime that staff work that make the pay worth it at the end of the month.
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Fireman police and ambulance personnel (and the managers) retire earlier than the rest of us for no good reason in a small island because they have ancient agreements, which make no modern-day sense. I take your point about the physical aspect.
What is wrong with the services carrying on less physical jobs like paperwork administration backup. Training of younger recruits or camera watching.
Sorry of course you do all this, in the private sector for banks and security firms earning a good wage on top of generous pensions and even worse, taking jobs from those whom may desperately need work, and can not afford to live a reasonable life style.
Finally with the possibility of us all having to work longer, this stupid old-fashioned system for the chosen few, is ripe for change.
Davey
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I need some advice if anyone can help. I’m a nurse in the UK and looking to relocate to Jersey early next year.I have read some of your comments and must say that i was quite concerned at what i had read. I’m particularly worried about childcare. I have three children of school age. Are there any after school clubs and any idea of prices? Also is nursing accommodation up to much? I hope someone can help.
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Lisa – a lot of what is posted on here is people expressing opinions which are not based on fact. While some of it is possibly true I would say that there is a lot of exaggeration and nonsense too. My advice to you would be to get in touch with HR and ask if they can put you in touch with others who have relocated here so you can speak to them directly and make an informed decision based on fact. Good luck to you!
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