[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

What a stupid idea this is. First of all why should footballers pay for a job that they are already contributing towards by the vast amounts of tax they pay and secondly why do it at all?

Why not cleaners? or *? or McDonalds staff? or any low paid job?

I appreciate what nurses do and if there can be a way to give them more money then great but they aren't charity cases they do get paid for what they do. The fact is the NHS is one of the biggest employers in Europe and resources are not unlimited so either campaign for higher taxes to pay the extra wages or shut up.

[SAV1OUR]

Get Bob the builder in.

[Sidders]

I vote they campaign. Or get a new job. Or go private.

[parody number 9]

Well if this goverment puts in all this extra 'funding' to pay for doctors to have ridiculose high wages and nurses get basic rates.

[Nicola_Red]

I also think it's ridiculous. Nurses do indeed do stirling work but if they go into the job imagining that they'll get paid a decent wage, they're deluded. It may be a vocation but I think if you're gonna do it you just have to accept that the pay is poor.

[Rychu]

Beware or your government may start to import some Polish nurses. 6 pound per hour in polish money is loads!

[Uglybob]

thought they already had

[MK Chris]

Beware or your government may start to import some Polish nurses. 6 pound per hour in polish money is loads!

Yes but the cost of living is higher, surely? (Either that or the commute would be a nightmare.)

[Rychu]

Sure but if you rent a room live a modest life for a year on two and you come back and you're sorted.
I somehow didn't manage to put away a fortune and Im here almost 3 years. Love to party with Scottish dudes to much!

[foot-loose]

Its what we do

[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

Theres been nurses coming from abroad for years anyway. It never goes down well with people but the fact is that the reason nurses are paid at the rate they are is that there is a much wider group of people who could do the job.

[Yudster]

Half the nurses in the hospital where my dad died last year can't speak English. You'd kind of think that being able to communicate with the patients would be somewhere on the list of "Preferred competencies", if not "Essential competencies" when they applied for the job.........as my dad discovered, there's not much point in ringing the "nurse call" bell if the nurse who attends can't understand the phrase "I am in incredible pain please may I have some morphine".

[DemonHorse]

Yeah i've had the same experience... a nurse who could speak english simply said OK. then toddled off. She didn't bother to come back to explain that She couldn't actually give the morphine and that apparently for the whole hospital (and this is a quite large hospital were talking about, the QMC in Nottingham) there were only about 3 people competent in this task. She also failed to explain someone was on their way.

[catherine]

Ward nurses are just trained in hospitals...actual real nurses that have done a 3/4 year course at uni deserve a good pay, not only have they busted their ass off to get the qualification but the NHS works them to the bone.

[Yudster]

I have recently had much reason to thank Mr Yudster's employer for the provision of free private health insurance. The private hospital here is lovely, it has people working in it who actually have time to smile, and chat, and make you think they care about you. I am sure the staff in large NHS places wish they could do that too, but they simply don't have time.

[Walter Sobchak]

I'm amazed that there are highly trained surgeons working as health care assistants and porters, the other thing my partner has told me is that to practice in this country they have to have the correct certificates, which doesn't necessarily mean they have the same amount of training, but more that they are part of the group of countries allowed to participate, sometimes you have doctors from other countries that have been trained to a very high standard, but they can't operate in this country, so they have to apply, and re-train which can take years.
And I don't think a full understanding of the language is part of these certificates, hence the difficulty in communication.

[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

By the same token you don't just want some bloke off the street claiming he has been trained abroad... there has to be some regulations.

I'm sure the NHS would love to employee a higher standard but there isn't the money to pay to attract those type of people to nursing. Pay more tax.

[Yudster]

I think many people would be more inclined to look favourably on paying more tax for this specific purpose if we had any kind of confidence that the tax we currently pay isn't being wasted - or poorly managed, at the very least - and that the extra money would in fact fund the things we are talking about here, rather than be used to pay Carillion to spread bacteria around the wards, and employ managers for the managers of the managers who needed more management. I do think that an overall increase in income tax is inevitable though.

[Vivienne]

Boring stuff........... yawns loudly.

[DemonHorse]

Wow... we should start doing that to your posts huh?

[Gaspode_The_Wonder_Dog]

I think many people would be more inclined to look favourably on paying more tax for this specific purpose if we had any kind of confidence that the tax we currently pay isn't being wasted - or poorly managed, at the very least - and that the extra money would in fact fund the things we are talking about here, rather than be used to pay Carillion to spread bacteria around the wards, and employ managers for the managers of the managers who needed more management. I do think that an overall increase in income tax is inevitable though.

will there ever be any public body or government who people believe are using their money correctly? I genuinely believe that most public sector organisations use their money far better than most private firms but I also accept that that should always be the case anyway.

[Yudster]

Fully fledged bastard of a good point.