[user104658]

Originally Posted by Livia

The average nurse earns around £35k a year. If you earn that salary and have to use a food bank, you may need help with organising your finances.

Again it's not about needing to use food banks it's about the pay being appropriate to the level of training, expertise and risk management and the fact that it's been devalued by 20% in a decade due to pay freezes. You could say the same about literally any job or career and cut the salary to £30k "because it's enough to get by so stop complaining".

If people can earn just as much doing something that requires less training and is less draining physically and emptionally, then they will. And they are, in increasing numbers. They can't fill the roles... the profession isn't attractive and for good reason. And people are dying because health services are critically understaffed. And because the tactic for filling the void is currently to replace skilled nurses with more and more unskilled healthcare assistants and "nursing associates" and nurses trained overseas who (sorry for the lack of PC here) are simply not trained or competent to the same standard. The cost is lives, it's that simple. Kazanne claims lives are more important than money - apparently not. The government will happily trade lives for a lower payroll.