Struggling NHS workers slam Tory 'zombie' Budget – 'there is nothing for us'

07 March 2024 , 08:33

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Nurse Rhian, 45, said she has to work extra shifts to make ends meet

NHS workers struggling financially have said that the Budget delivered by Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will do nothing to help them.

One nurse estimated she is around £10,000 a year worse off in real terms than when the Tories came to power. Mum-of-two Rhian works as a nurse on an acute hospital ward and has been in the NHS for 26 years. Her husband is a maintenance worker and their combined annual salaries are around £55,000 before tax.

The 45-year-old, from Leeds, said: “They talk about the National Insurance cut making people £450 better off over the year, but I would be more than that better off every month if my pay had kept up [with inflation]. Our kids are our priority but we’ve had to make difficult decisions as a family. I have to do extra shifts to make ends meet. Our responsibilities have increased. Now we’re doing some work that used to be the responsibility of doctors. Workloads have increased and the real terms pay cuts are forcing nurses out.”

Nurse Victor Tapah said he may have to leave the NHS

Another nurse told how he cannot afford to put food on the table each month so is considering leaving the NHS. Victor Tapah, 35, takes home around £2,000 pay each month and has a one-year-old daughter with his wife in Peterborough. He told the Mirror every month he is getting further into debt

“Half of my pay goes on rent then I have to pay council tax and all the other bills,” he said. "If I want to pay for food I need to do overtime shifts so I’m exhausted. We know there’s an election coming up but we are not being paid properly. The Government’s focus should be a long term plan for the NHS not cutting taxes. I don’t see anything in the budget to really support us. We just want to be able to pay our bills and provide for our families. I should be able to afford to give my daughter a better life. I don’t want to leave the NHS but sometimes people have no choice.”

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Victor, who is a Unison rep, has worked as a critical care nurse in Cambridge since 2019. He added: “More people are leaving because staff are burnt out. We have surgeries cancelled because there are not enough nurses. The pressure is growing and you can really feel it. Sometimes I go to work and just think ‘this isn’t safe’.”

Hospital cleaner Deanne Wheeler, 44 from Rowley Regis, said: “It’s hard for me and my colleagues. The cost of living is going up and up and up all of the time. I work part time and my husband works full time and we struggle. We have to write down everything that is coming in and going out. It is really hard financially, especially with gas and electricity prices.”

The Chancellor included an announcement to drip feed an extra £2.5 billion into the NHS budget. It meant the overall NHS budget for England was flat in real terms at a time when it is struggling with record waits for care and an estimated staffing shortfall of 150,000 workers.

Deanne, a Unison rep, added: “Hospitals have already tried to make cutbacks wherever they can, there are not enough staff. Things have definitely got worse in the last few years. I see it all the time, I see the nurses on the wards stretched to the maximum. Those nurses are working full time and picking up extra shifts to try and cover the workload.”

Deanne Wheeler says costs keep going up (Jonathan Buckmaster)

One of the Budget announcements was money for an IT revamp which Chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed would “fully digitise” patient records. Mr Hunt made the same promise in 2013, when serving as Health Secretary, to make the NHS paperless within five years. This never happened.

Mr Hunt said the IT plan will also set up an NHS staffing app to try to rely less on expensive staffing agencies.

Rhian, a rep for the Royal College of Nursing, added: “We had an NHS staffing app years ago but it was dismantled under this Government. “They talk about IT systems but who are they going to get to run them. We are haemorrhaging staff. We wouldn’t need to rely on agency staff if the NHS was able to properly pay its staff.”

Martin Bagot