"Now is the (start of the) winter of our discontent" - caused by pandemic fraud and insane climate change policies

100,000 UK nurses (except Scotland) go on strike to try and recoup some of the 20% loss in real wages over the last decade

“Now is the winter of our discontent” is already starting in the UK as the Royal College of Nurses strikes for the first time in 100 years.

Nurses have been underpaid for decades, with increasing chunks of the UK’s national health system being eaten up by “administrators”.

Not only is the current work-force severely underpaid, there are 40,000 vacancies for nursing staff, who number around 700,000.

The UK government had no hesitation in spending on its C19 measures. Here is a chart of national debt as a percentage of GDP sine 2006

Here is a chart of spending on the health care spending since 2020 – up from around 50 billion pounds in 2000, to around 218 billion this year, with significant reductions in sight.

The number of hospital beds does not follow the same pattern – down from 240,000 to 160,000 since 2000.

Here’s a chart of the number of nurses employed over the last few decades. Number of nurses including health visitors, midwives and ambulance staff in the NHS Hospitals and Community Health Service (HCHS) workforce England from 1995 to 2021.

Far fewer beds and a lot more nurses. Patient care must be improving right?

Here’s the current pay scales for nurses – Bands 3-5 with 5 years experience get between 23,000 and 32,000 pounds a year (US$27,600 to US$38,400). Perhaps someone should mention that US nurses get around US$80,000 a year (around £66,666).

Here’s an article that has some of the governments response to the nurses demands to restore real wages to those of ten years ago.

“Health minister Maria Caulfield ..told Sky News: “Cancer surgeries are going to be closed in those 44 trusts in England. We reckon it’s about 70,000 appointments, procedures, surgeries that will be lost.”

“..the Government is sticking to the recommendations of the independent pay review body, which said nurses should get a pay rise of around £1,400.”

UK inflation is currently 9.3%.

The RCN has been calling for a pay rise at 5% above inflation, though it has indicated it would accept a lower offer.

There are lots of strikes planned for the UK in the next few months.

“There is some form of industrial action planned for every day in December as rail workers, including staff at Eurostar, nurses, teachers, security guards handling cash, driving examiners and rural payments officers have announced strikes.

The true scale of the disruption is set to be significantly worse, as the union representing civil servants, including Border Force officers, Passport Office staff and National Highways employees, has backed strike action. Border Force officials will hold an eight-day strike over the Christmas period.”

Out of interest, whilst the population of the UK has increased from 59 million to 68 million (mostly due to immigration, since the year 2000 here is a chart of immigration flows.

The chart below shows UK population turnover from migration flows of around 4 million over the last 15 years since 2006 with 9 million immigrants and 5 million emigrants – for a turnover of 14 million out of 61 million in 2006 = 23%, with non_EU making up around 80% of turnover). Source here)