Many nurses have died from COVID-19, and they deserve no less than a 12.5% increase in pay because of their hard work.
This was stressed by the professional lawyers of Deo Volente (DV) Solicitors in Bedford, United Kingdom (UK), which supports the plea of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to increase the pay of nurses by 12.5%.
The law firm said this would ensure that nurses are treated fairly and will continue to provide important services that are vital to the National Health Service (NHS) and patients.
“A fair NHS will also mean a safe NHS,” according to Qamar Rehman, the founder and senior partner of DV Solicitors. “Raising the pay of nurses is a sure way of acknowledging their dedication during the pandemic.”
In 2020, more than 600,000 nurses were working in the UK, according to Statistica. Of the NHS’s total workforce of 1,093,638, qualified nurses numbered 311,380 in March 2019.
Unfortunately, a lot of these tireless front liners have been killed in the line of duty. The Independent said the COVID death toll among nurses had reached 1,500 as of October 2020.
According to the International Council of Nurses (ICN), this is the same as the total number of nurses killed during the four years of World War One, according to the International Council of Nurses (ICN).
However, the ICN believes that the figure could be higher since it only included data from 44 countries. It called the lack of proper data on the deaths of healthcare workers “shocking.”
An analysis of global infection rates by the ICN suggests that as many as 20,000 healthcare workers (including nurses) have died from COVID-19. But this has yet to be substantiated.
Regardless of the number of deaths, the RCN said the proposed 1% pay increase is not enough to cover the nurses’ work during the pandemic. It called on members to ask for more as part of its Fair Pay for Nursing Campaign.
The RCN added that fair pay would attract more people to the profession. This ensures that more experienced workers will remain, which is good for patients.
DV Solicitors said the pay raise is one way of curbing the rise of medical negligence, which is common in the UK. This happens when the doctor makes the wrong diagnosis or gives a delayed diagnosis. Other signs of medical negligence are wrong prescriptions and mistakes during surgery.
Victims of medical negligence may be entitled to compensation. In the UK alone, there are more than 10,000 medical negligence claims made yearly. The NHS receives about 4,000 complaints weekly or 600 daily.
To see if you are entitled to compensation, consult DV Solicitors. You can also download their MedNeg App from Google Play or the App Store. This handy app was designed to help users with their medical negligence claims.
For more information, visit https://www.dvsolicitors.com, call 01234 350 244, or email info@dvsolicitors.com.
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