Nurses in the UK have been plunged into millions of pounds of debt following a real-terms pay cut of 9 per cent since 2010, the RCN president claimed last week. Addressing the college’s annual general meeting in London, Andrea Spyropoulos said nurses are ‘living on a shoestring’ following a 14 per cent rise in the cost of living at a time when their pay had been frozen for years and then rises capped at 1 per cent. ‘The fact is nurses are struggling to pay the bills,’ she said. ‘They are having to take loans out or borrow from loved ones.’ She went on to say that the RCN had supported 15,000 members who need welfare and counselling, and helped members manage £4 million of debt in the past year. Her comments come as nursing unions brace themselves for a battle with the Department of Health over its call to freeze pay again, which it made in its submission to the NHS Pay Review Body (RB). Unions are due to give oral evidence to the RB on the issue next month. ‘Patient numbers are soaring, budgets are still reducing and jobs are still being lost and you are being told that a 1 per cent pay rise makes you lucky. Well, you are not lucky. You are being taken for a ride,’ added Ms Spyropoulos. The RCN has launched a project titled Nursing in Tough Times, which will see Ms Spyropoulos and RCN deputy president Cecilia Anim travel the UK gathering evidence of the financial struggles facing nurses today. The evidence will then be used to lobby government and prove to the public that nurses are ‘being pushed to the limit’.
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Jan 9, 2019
Lynn Eaton 
