Just to clarify this, most nurses are Band 5 - that's what you would consider a standard nursing role. Band 6 is a separate role (roughly equivalent to the old-fashioned matron) - you don't automatically move into band 6 after x years of work - typically there will only be 1 or 2 band 6 roles on a ward, and it involves a huge amount of admin coupled with standard nursing work. Most nurses won't look at band 6 roles because you tend to lose any unsociable hours payments, and you will definitely end up giving extra hours for no extra pay.
Band 5 salaries start at about £25k, and you get a raise every year until you hit the top end of the band salary - that's about £30k at the moment, and I think that takes 6 years. Once you hit the top of your band, you get no payrise except whatever the government decides, so when there's an 8 year pay freeze (which ended a couple of years back) top of band nurses get zip - or more realistically with inflation, a pay cut.
There is no option to "go somewhere else", because NHS pay is set across the board. London gets more, because London, but that's basically it. Nurses do earn for unsociable hours (nights and weekends), but then they also work really unsociable hours - and you have no control over this. There has also been some talk about removing this extra pay.
They also don't get paid for breaks any more (even though many nurses aren't allowed to leave their ward) and that had a knock-on effect of meaning nurses will end up "owing" a shift every month - was a nice sneaky way of adding some nursing shifts for free.
Some other notes:
- Band 5 nurses have to have a degree now - and yes, you do pay £9k a year for this. It's effectively a full time degree and a part-time HCA role, so good luck working around that. It used to be free with a bursary - they removed the bursary for about 5 years, but that's now back - you now get about £5k a year as standard.
- You can become a band 4 by working as a carer and doing a nursing course. You earn less and have less capabilities - it's a good way of boosting "nursing" numbers, but there are lots of duties they are not allowed to perform.
- Typical wards run 13 hour shifts, say from 7am/pm to 8pm/am - if you don't have an astonishing family support structure, good luck finding affordable childcare for that. Standard M-F/9-5 roles are rare and highly fought over.
- Many wards do not have a doctor available 24/7, so it is entirely on the nurses. They will have an on-call doctor, who may be based in a different county, or 999 as a backup - lots of nurses have stories about ambulance crews that are angry they've had to attend a community hospital for a patient who's fallen and hit their head.
- If they follow a doctor's orders and they're wrong (such as a drug dose), that's on the nurse - they're expected to catch the doctor's mistakes.
- They typically have to reskill every 3-5 years on procedures, such as IVs. Depending on their trust, that may well be on the nurses to track and organise themselves. Interestingly, doctors don't. You would be amazed at how many doctors can't do things like put cannulas in because they haven't done it for 10 years.
Nursing may look like a well paid job on paper, but it really isn't when you consider all the variables that go into it. I get paid twice what my wife does, do much less work and have zero stress in comparison.
