As some of you will know I am a nurse, today in the post I received my RCN ballot paper. I am asked to vote on whether we should take industrial action regarding the recent pay offer.
This is a very difficult issue for nurses, we have a Code of Conduct which says we should do our patients no harm either by act or omission. However I firmly believe that our patients deserve to receive care from people who are skilled and knowledgeable and that if we wish to attract and retain these types of people to the profession they should be adequately renumerated. We are expected at even at staff nurse level to be educated to almost degree level, nurses during their training receive a pitifully low bursary. Many senior nurses are educated to Masters level, never mind all the other vocational courses we need to undertake to progress in our careers; many of these undertaken in our own time.We work antisocial hours and do a job that involves us in m any intimate and distressing aspects of peoples bodily functions and their emotional lives too. However I also believe that nursing is a profession I am very proud to belong to and this pride in my job and mt profession means that I could not take any industrial action that would compromise standards of patient care.
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