{"id":1147,"date":"2023-04-01T10:31:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-01T10:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/?p=1147"},"modified":"2023-05-02T10:37:42","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T10:37:42","slug":"the-healthcare-staffing-crisis-is-the-profession-as-poorly-compensated-as-the-unions-suggest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/the-healthcare-staffing-crisis-is-the-profession-as-poorly-compensated-as-the-unions-suggest\/","title":{"rendered":"The Healthcare Staffing Crisis: Is the profession as poorly compensated as the Unions suggest?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Paul E. L. T. Borrow-Longain<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During 2022 and now in 2023 the media seems to be constantly full of news articles about employees going on or threatening to go on strike, or otherwise restricting the amount of work they are willing to do. One of these groups are healthcare professionals within the NHS. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doctors, nurses and paramedics – what are now collectively referred to as \u2018healthcare professionals\u2019 –  are demanding that the Government increase their salaries, as they consider themselves \u201cundervalued and underpaid\u201d. Their unions have truly mastered public relations as the general public are exposed to spokespeople informing us on how badly they feel NHS employees are paid, how overworked they are, how undervalued they feel, and how they are only concerned with providing the very best patient care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m unsure how going on strike is putting patients first – the motto they used quite frequently by the aforementioned healthcare professionals<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should take a moment to say that\u00a0 I greatly respect the medical profession as a whole, and feel that they sometimes get a raw deal. However, like every profession known to mankind, the individual members of the healthcare profession have various definitions of the word \u201cprofessionalism\u201d. I believe it is imperative that we judge the individual and not the group. I have met outstanding doctors, nurses and paramedics over the last 43 years have also, sadly, met many who cannot be described in the same way.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A question of salary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish to start by pointing out that the unions and the media constantly refer to \u201csalary\u201d, and I have seen\u00a0 on various social media platforms the pay stubs posted, I assume by their owners (the doctors, nurses et al), to highlight their opinion they are not paid highly enough.\u00a0 However, one should not only consider salary alone, but the overall compensation package that healthcare professionals have access to.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the difference between salary and compensation package some might ask, and rightly so, as it is critically important, and central to the question at hand. Salary is simply the money you are paid which (after taxes) goes into your bank account. The compensation package is your salary combined with any other financial benefit you get because of your job, from your employer or in some cases from others. This includes such benefits as employer pension contributions; discounted\/subsidised memberships; and anything else received by you which has a monetary value.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, any given employment position’s compensation package can be far larger than the salary. Some aspects of such compensation packages have the potential to\u00a0 generate immediate financial benefits while others, such as employer contributions to pensions, pays for your lifestyle in retirement. Therefore limiting the discussion exclusively to an individual’s (or professional group’s) salary level is arguably extremely misleading.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would recommend anyone interested should research what the compensation package and employee benefits are for NHS employees – you might be surprised at what you discover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One valuable resource to help understand the compensation package available to NHS employees can be found on the following link: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.nhsemployers.org\/jobs\/employee-benefits<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fringe benefits<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NHS employees are one group of workers who can benefit from a wealth of benefits offered to them by third parties, which are not offered to everyone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most if not all of us have heard about or seen for ourselves discounts for Blue Light or Key Workers, offered by a wide range of shops, restaurants and other businesses wanting to proactively secure customers from within this demographic. While discounted restaurant meals might be of nominal value (in financial terms), discounts on more expensive items such as cars and houses are not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These offers give tangible financial benefits to qualifying customers, and those savings have the added value of being tax-free. As an illustration, a \u00a35,000 house purchase discount, given to an individual in the 20% tax bracket, is equal to nearly \u00a36,000 in terms of financial gain. If an employee’s annual salary is \u00a330,000 a \u00a36,000 discount represents 20%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NHS (via www.nhsemployers.org<\/a>) go as far as to promote such benefits on their website, as seen in the following quote about what employees can take advantage of :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Access to a huge range of NHS discounts and healthcare staff benefits, from money saving deals and vouchers, including travel and holiday deals, top hotel discounts, relaxing airport lounge and airport parking discounts, mouth-watering restaurant deals, money off fashion fixes, through to deals on mobile phones, utilities and gym membership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a free market capitalist I wholeheartedly believe that business owners are free to offer discounts to anyone they please. It is an excellent marketing tactic, and it goes without saying that should such offers be available, NHS employees would be unwise to reject them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am in no way suggesting that such benefits should be factored into any pay increase negotiation, as not everyone can or will use every benefit offered I feel however that it is important to acknowledge the existence of such benefits and place that information into context when hearing \u201cour NHS staff are undervalued and therefore deserve a pay rise\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I fundamentally believe in the importance of continually reviewing what we pay the employees of the NHS, as they do a critically important job and without them society could not function. Doctors, nurses, paramedics and all other professions that are required to deliver healthcare to the British people should feel valued, respected, and should be fairly paid for their efforts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally important is a correct and complete understanding of the entire compensation package. However, the unions representing the NHS employees do not seem to want to discuss or highlight this, at least in the media reports I’ve seen of late.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By truly understanding the situation, and with open and honest discussions between informed and fair dealing negotiators, I honestly believe a solution can be found to these NHS strikes. They simply need to start from a foundation of truth. As the unions are using public pressure to force the hand of the government, I feel it is important the general public understand the full\u00a0 extent\u00a0 of the benefits NHS employees can access before they pressure and lobby for it to be increased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Paul E. L. T. Borrow-Longain During 2022 and now in 2023 the media seems to be constantly full of news articles about employees going on or threatening to go on strike, or otherwise restricting the amount of work they are willing to do. One of these groups are healthcare professionals within the NHS.  Doctors, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1148,"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions\/1148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.farnes.net\/paul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}