Why do people think the country owes them something? [Bit of a rant about councils!]

[rubyrose]

I must say i did have a bad attitude towards people on benefits at one point which i feel bad for now because actually the benefits system has helped me so much. Me and my husband both have worked full time since we left school and i do a student nurse course now so i get a bursary so im not technically unemployed but i have to live on a crap wage and my hubby lost his job so i have been very grateful for the help of housing benefit etc as i would of been in deep crap basically! I struggle still now but i get a roof over my head and i paid into the system, one which is flawed, but it helped me when i needed it!

But ep there are faarr too many people abusing it !

 

[Foogirl]

i

i dont get how they afford the lifestyles they are leading if they are not working on the side.

Mostly because they are "career" benefits claimants and know the system inside and out so know exactly what they are entitled to. And of course there are those who work on the side.

It really winds me up that the system leaves you struggling when there are those who do very well out of it. You are the kind of person the system is there to help.

i do a student nurse course now so i get a bursary so im not technically unemployed but i have to live on a crap wage

Mucho sympathy for the nursing students. You are the only students in the world who can't get a part time job because you are expected to work as part of your course. And the bursary they give you is shockingly low. It is about time the NHS paid student nurses a decent wage for the hours they do.

 

[Lil-woowoo]

i

i dont get how they afford the lifestyles they are leading if they are not working on the side.

Mostly because they are "career" benefits claimants and know the system inside and out so know exactly what they are entitled to. And of course there are those who work on the side.

It really winds me up that the system leaves you struggling when there are those who do very well out of it. You are the kind of person the system is there to help.

i do a student nurse course now so i get a bursary so im not technically unemployed but i have to live on a crap wage

Mucho sympathy for the nursing students. You are the only students in the world who can't get a part time job because you are expected to work as part of your course. And the bursary they give you is shockingly low. It is about time the NHS paid student nurses a decent wage for the hours they do.

I totally agree but its not going to happen any time soon. I am in my final year and would never do it all again, its sooo hard trying to live on the crappy bursary, pay bills and childcare(in scotland the childcare element is pants) especially being a single parent its sooo hard but hey 8 months and counting left x

 

[Foogirl]

I totally agree but its not going to happen any time soon. I am in my final year and would never do it all again, its sooo hard trying to live on the crappy bursary, pay bills and childcare(in scotland the childcare element is pants) especially being a single parent its sooo hard but hey 8 months and counting left x

Well, good luck with that. At least you are on the home stretch.

Then after that you have the fantabulous wages the NHS pays nurses to look forward to

 

[Lexx]

i

i dont get how they afford the lifestyles they are leading if they are not working on the side.

Mostly because they are "career" benefits claimants and know the system inside and out so know exactly what they are entitled to. And of course there are those who work on the side.

It really winds me up that the system leaves you struggling when there are those who do very well out of it. You are the kind of person the system is there to help.

i do a student nurse course now so i get a bursary so im not technically unemployed but i have to live on a crap wage

Mucho sympathy for the nursing students. You are the only students in the world who can't get a part time job because you are expected to work as part of your course. And the bursary they give you is shockingly low. It is about time the NHS paid student nurses a decent wage for the hours they do.

Don't forget social work students who work as part of their training making it imposible to get a part time job when you work 9-5 in social services often later then have to do all your course work and revision aswell and are still expected to pay uni fees unlike nursing students.


Back on subject the only thing that really boils my blood about the benefits system is when people are supposidly 'strugling' on benefits so what do they do? They pop out another baby. I mean why would you do that? If you knew you were strugling and couldn't work, other than because of disabilty, why would you have another child? To me thats selfish to the extreme and they are the spongers who need to be kicked of benefits. It of course wont ever happen because it will only ever be the children who suffer.

 

[LankyDoodle]

i

i dont get how they afford the lifestyles they are leading if they are not working on the side.

Mostly because they are "career" benefits claimants and know the system inside and out so know exactly what they are entitled to. And of course there are those who work on the side.

It really winds me up that the system leaves you struggling when there are those who do very well out of it. You are the kind of person the system is there to help.

i do a student nurse course now so i get a bursary so im not technically unemployed but i have to live on a crap wage

Mucho sympathy for the nursing students. You are the only students in the world who can't get a part time job because you are expected to work as part of your course. And the bursary they give you is shockingly low. It is about time the NHS paid student nurses a decent wage for the hours they do.

Don't forget social work students who work as part of their training making it imposible to get a part time job when you work 9-5 in social services often later then have to do all your course work and revision aswell and are still expected to pay uni fees unlike nursing students.


Back on subject the only thing that really boils my blood about the benefits system is when people are supposidly 'strugling' on benefits so what do they do? They pop out another baby. I mean why would you do that? If you knew you were strugling and couldn't work, other than because of disabilty, why would you have another child? To me thats selfish to the extreme and they are the spongers who need to be kicked of benefits. It of course wont ever happen because it will only ever be the children who suffer.

I was going to say last night when I read this post:

Don't forget trainee teachers (my bursary was pitiful), social work students (and I won't even get a student loan like nurses do, just the bursary!), student midwives, trainee drs (who pay more per year for books etc than most students do in their whole degree)... and many many others.

 

[Foogirl]

Don't forget trainee teachers (my bursary was pitiful), social work students (and I won't even get a student loan like nurses do, just the bursary!), student midwives, trainee drs (who pay more per year for books etc than most students do in their whole degree)... and many many others.

It is kinda different (with the exception of midwives who I kind of lumped in with them)
Student social workers and teachers can still get another job if they need to. Many vocational degree courses involve an amount of working on the job, but few to the extent of nursing (midwifery too). What makes it impossible is not the number of hours necessarily it is the shift patterns. It is hard to find a part time job that can be flexible enough to allow for the nursing shifts. I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong but is it not the case that student nurses aren't allowed to take a part time job? It certainly was when my best friend did the course 15 years ago.

I have friends who were student teachers and still had part time jobs. My flatmate was a student in social work and worked in a bar. My degree in the final two years was very intensive and as well as this I had to work on the job 9-5 for less than minimum wage, and on top of that I had two part time jobs. I had to otherwise I would have had to leave. Of course it was difficult, but the point is, at least it was a choice that was available to me.

A bursary would have helped, I got bugger all grant either. I'm all for students being given more financial help generally, in the form of the student loan, but at the very least I think nurses should never be grudged the bursary they get, for all it's worth.

 

[Lexx]

I get sick to death of hearing poor nurses this poor nurses that they get burserys, student loan and their fees paid its a joke. Yes it is posible to work while doing social work and teacher training but not if you actualy want to do any well on your course! I know student nurses who do early shifts finshed at 1400, why can they work after that doing auxillary work? My first social work place ent will be 40 hours a week in the work place and I will still be expected to keep up with my studys attened touturials etc.

 

[Foogirl]

I get sick to death of hearing poor nurses this poor nurses that they get burserys, student loan and their fees paid its a joke. Yes it is posible to work while doing social work and teacher training but not if you actualy want to do any well on your course! I know student nurses who do early shifts finshed at 1400, why can they work after that doing auxillary work? My first social work place ent will be 40 hours a week in the work place and I will still be expected to keep up with my studys attened touturials etc.

Sounds like just about every other student on any vocational course. It is possible to work as well as doing these courses and still do well. Plenty of people do.

The nurses bursaries are there for a reason, not just because they decided life should be unfair for all other students.

 

[loonylamb]

I don't personally like people fleecing the system, however I've known people who have took extra work on the side just to pay for food, gas and electric etc who had tried to get legit jobs and couldn't for whatever reason, I don't begrudge them that if it kept a roof over their heads and food on their table.
If people make a career out of it that's a different issue.

With regards to the studying I've just finished my social work degree, first year re placement wasn't so bad as it was only 30 days but second and first years were really difficult with the amount of hours you put in working then the studying when you get home (not to mention the travelling as they place you with no regard to your family commitments so I've usually ended up an hour away from home)

There has been no way at any time while I've been at Uni that I could have worked apart from the summer holidays and even then no one would employ me as I was over qualified for the jobs that I was going for but underqualified for any others.
I have three children and my youngest was 9 months old when I started the course, I'd returned to work when he was 6 months old and I continued to work till he was 12 months but left as I had no time for him or my other children when juggling work with uni and as uni was the key to a better life for us all then uni it had to be.

Also you are allowed to do part time work when studying social work but if you do full time you lose your entitlement to any grants loans etc although you are still entitled to the bursary.

If I could have juggled I would have.

Unless you have no other commitments such as children or being a carer, then working when studying a course that requires you to complete practical work like social work, nursing, teaching etc I feel is nigh on impossible.

 

[Lexx]

I get sick to death of hearing poor nurses this poor nurses that they get burserys, student loan and their fees paid its a joke. Yes it is posible to work while doing social work and teacher training but not if you actualy want to do any well on your course! I know student nurses who do early shifts finshed at 1400, why can they work after that doing auxillary work? My first social work place ent will be 40 hours a week in the work place and I will still be expected to keep up with my studys attened touturials etc.

Sounds like just about every other student on any vocational course. It is possible to work as well as doing these courses and still do well. Plenty of people do.

The nurses bursaries are there for a reason, not just because they decided life should be unfair for all other students.

What reason is that then? Because they find it difficult to work, as do social work students. Because there is a massive shortage of nurses? Wrong there is no shortage however there is a masisve shortage and a goverment campagin to recruit more social workers, but wheres the insenstive for them to become social workers; they have to pay fee loans unlike nurses, the placements are longer and more intense than nurses. Read the latest Nursing Times student nurses are refusing to do the basic tasks such as clean patients and change beds as its 'below them'! Then when social work students graduate they are upto their necks in debt where as nursing students are pretty debt free or at least should be if they managed their money well and then get jobs that are only a couple less grand a year for alot easier and less stressful job! Its madness!

 

[Lil-woowoo]

Nursing times talk complete utter crap, its such a trashy "journal". Only degree students in england get a loan and thats because their bursary is means tested. All uni courses in scotland are exempt from paying their fees. In the three years that i have done nursing i have never seen or heard or people refusing to carry out basic care and i have loads of friends who are nurses and students too.

I would never put down a student social worker as i dont know the course or anything about it, so unless you have been a student nurse please dont make assumptions about what it entails and dont believe a word the "Nursing times" spouts out its not what would be classed as a credible source to read

 

[Lil-woowoo]

Nursing is a lot less stressful and easier, come on your having a joke!!!!!!
Ok so telling a patient that they have a terminal illness and have a matter of months left to live or even working in ICU on nightshift where a patient has been involved in a major trauma and broken every bone in their body and massive internal injuries and your working to try and stabilise or maybe being present when your turning off a life support machine on a young child that no more can be done for and trying to console those parents.

Nah ofcourse its not stressful

 

[Foogirl]

What reason is that then? Because they find it difficult to work, as do social work students. Because there is a massive shortage of nurses? Wrong there is no shortage however there is a masisve shortage and a goverment campagin to recruit more social workers, but wheres the insenstive for them to become social workers; they have to pay fee loans unlike nurses, the placements are longer and more intense than nurses. Read the latest Nursing Times student nurses are refusing to do the basic tasks such as clean patients and change beds as its 'below them'! Then when social work students graduate they are upto their necks in debt where as nursing students are pretty debt free or at least should be if they managed their money well and then get jobs that are only a couple less grand a year for alot easier and less stressful job! Its madness!

The word is "impossible" not just difficult, that is why the bursary is primarily there.

The placements are carried out throughout their whole course, not just part of it and if they aren't working, they are attending lectures and training etc.

Of course for areas which are under represented there needs to be more drive to recruit students, but this, again, is the case in many other areas, not just social work. Financial incentives are not necessarily the answer to everything.

If you were so incensed about the funding for your own course and knew it would be difficult to do, why chose to study that in the first place? For many nursing students the answer to that is that the career is something they have always wanted to do and they were willing to do whatever it took.

LilWooWoo was making the point that in order to provide for her family she was struggling to get a career and that seeing people sitting on their arses on benefits whilst she has to struggle irks her. Quite a valid point I'd say, and something that many students can identify with, regardless of what they are studying. Turning on nursing students because you have chosen to follow an educational path which you have had to pay for is out of order IMO.

As her last post suggests, to suppose that nursing is a less stressful career is well short of the mark. Just go along to any NNICU unit and talk to the staff there about having to treat and lose such small babies, then think about how "easy" you would find it.

 

[LankyDoodle]

Don't forget trainee teachers (my bursary was pitiful), social work students (and I won't even get a student loan like nurses do, just the bursary!), student midwives, trainee drs (who pay more per year for books etc than most students do in their whole degree)... and many many others.

It is kinda different (with the exception of midwives who I kind of lumped in with them)
Student social workers and teachers can still get another job if they need to. Many vocational degree courses involve an amount of working on the job, but few to the extent of nursing (midwifery too). What makes it impossible is not the number of hours necessarily it is the shift patterns. It is hard to find a part time job that can be flexible enough to allow for the nursing shifts. I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong but is it not the case that student nurses aren't allowed to take a part time job? It certainly was when my best friend did the course 15 years ago.

I have friends who were student teachers and still had part time jobs. My flatmate was a student in social work and worked in a bar. My degree in the final two years was very intensive and as well as this I had to work on the job 9-5 for less than minimum wage, and on top of that I had two part time jobs. I had to otherwise I would have had to leave. Of course it was difficult, but the point is, at least it was a choice that was available to me.

A bursary would have helped, I got bugger all grant either. I'm all for students being given more financial help generally, in the form of the student loan, but at the very least I think nurses should never be grudged the bursary they get, for all it's worth.

Student teachers can still get a job? Are you for real? Is that after 1am when I'd finished all my essays and lesson planning or before 530am when I had to get up to drive to my placements?

Your friends most likely did BEds! I did a PGCE which is 9-5 during uni time and then normal school hours plus planning and prep at home (and your uni essays) during school placements!

As a trainee teacher, I was also not allowed to take a p/t job!!

Between September and November I was in uni 9-5 Mon to Fri, had reading for all of the primary subjects, hdd a 1000 word assignment for each core subject (so x3) every week and had 2x 4000 word essays because of the masters element. From November to February, I'd leave my house at 615ish, get to school by 730, sort out displays, draw up plans and rotas for LSAs, sort out my resources and classroom and make sure I had all my plans printed. I'd then teach all day (lunch time involved setting up for the afternoon). When school finished at 330, 2 nights a week I ran a club until 5ish and one night we had a meeting until about 6-7pm. Once I had finished tidying my classroom and chatting with my mentors, I then had to do any marking and photocopying, often not getting home until 730pm earliest. Time for a bite to eat, peck on the cheek for my husband and then onto planning whatever lessons and preparing resources, which ranged from cut out clocks for the younger ones to cube nets for older ones. By the time I'd done any research around any topics I was teaching and kept uptodate with uni reading and then the essays we also had to do while on placement, I probably had about 4 lesson evaluations (half a side of A4 each) to write for each day before I could get into bed and think about the next day! Saturday was spent doing more of the same sort of thing - planning, resources, medium term planning, schemes of work, marking, assessments. Sundays were mainly uni work days and a chance for a sleep. I was back to uni from Feb until April (same as before and a final 6000 word essay) and then back on placement from April until July (same as before except the class now became my full responsibility as it was my main and final placement).

My holidays were 2 weeks at christmas, 2 weeks at easter, 1 week in may - any other holidays (like oct and feb half term) were study weeks at uni. Most of my holidays I was writing essays anyway. We were prohibited from getting a p/t job but I'd really challenge anyone to have fit one in in any case as I was never in bed before 1 on school nights and 12ish on uni nights.

I had to take out a tuition fee loan and received a bursary but no maintenance loan. In total, my income for the year was about 400 a month.

I never said I begrudged the nursing bursary either; I was simply correcting you when you said nurses were the only students int he world who could not work part time as well. I also have friends who trained as nurses who had/have part time jobs alongside, so it's not impossible, just like you say it isn't with teaching!

 

[LankyDoodle]

I get sick to death of hearing poor nurses this poor nurses that they get burserys, student loan and their fees paid its a joke. Yes it is posible to work while doing social work and teacher training but not if you actualy want to do any well on your course! I know student nurses who do early shifts finshed at 1400, why can they work after that doing auxillary work? My first social work place ent will be 40 hours a week in the work place and I will still be expected to keep up with my studys attened touturials etc.

Sounds like just about every other student on any vocational course. It is possible to work as well as doing these courses and still do well. Plenty of people do.

The nurses bursaries are there for a reason, not just because they decided life should be unfair for all other students.

Yes and that is why social work students and teaching students also get bursaries!

 

[Faerie]

I get sick to death of hearing poor nurses this poor nurses that they get burserys, student loan and their fees paid its a joke. Yes it is posible to work while doing social work and teacher training but not if you actualy want to do any well on your course! I know student nurses who do early shifts finshed at 1400, why can they work after that doing auxillary work? My first social work place ent will be 40 hours a week in the work place and I will still be expected to keep up with my studys attened touturials etc.

Sounds like just about every other student on any vocational course. It is possible to work as well as doing these courses and still do well. Plenty of people do.

The nurses bursaries are there for a reason, not just because they decided life should be unfair for all other students.

What reason is that then? Because they find it difficult to work, as do social work students. Because there is a massive shortage of nurses? Wrong there is no shortage however there is a masisve shortage and a goverment campagin to recruit more social workers, but wheres the insenstive for them to become social workers; they have to pay fee loans unlike nurses, the placements are longer and more intense than nurses. Read the latest Nursing Times student nurses are refusing to do the basic tasks such as clean patients and change beds as its 'below them'! Then when social work students graduate they are upto their necks in debt where as nursing students are pretty debt free or at least should be if they managed their money well and then get jobs that are only a couple less grand a year for alot easier and less stressful job! Its madness!

I don't know the in and out of social studies, and I'm sure social work is a demanding job but saying that nursing is easy and not stressfull??? Huh??? You have to be kidding!

For the 3 weeks Sofia was in NICU, PHDU and the peadiatric ward those amazing nurses did not stop moving, 12 hour shifts in a highly emotional environment not only tending to very sick babies but being supportive to their wrecks of families too. I am thankful every day. I couldn't do it, I'm so glad there are people who can fill that vocation.

 

[Foogirl]

Yes and that is why social work students and teaching students also get bursaries!

But according to Lexx, the nurses get this and far more than they deserve.

Your friends most likely did BEds! I did a PGCE which is 9-5 during uni time and then normal school hours plus planning and prep at home (and your uni essays) during school placements!

That's a 1 year full time course, right? Of course any 1 year study is going to be far more intensive than training over a longer period of time.

How about having to do all that and survive on such a small amount for 4 years whilst doing a Bachelor of Nursing degree?

Not quite the same is it.

 

[Foogirl]

For the 3 weeks Sofia was in NICU, PHDU and the peadiatric ward those amazing nurses did not stop moving, 12 hour shifts in a highly emotional environment not only tending to very sick babies but being supportive to their wrecks of families too. I am thankful every day. I couldn't do it, I'm so glad there are people who can fill that vocation.

I totally agree with you on this one. It takes a special person do do any type of nursing job, but especially in NNICU. The job is physically and emotionally more demanding than most people could deal with. They can have as much of my tax money as they want.

 

[Aidan's Mummy]

Please someone tell me that someone is saying nurses dont work as hard as soicla workers

Students nurses do from 7.30 to half 5. THey then have to do assigmnets their proffesional profile record etc,

When I start training I am going into a childrens hospice where these children will not get better very very distressing.

SOME nurses are useless just like SOME social wokers are. Baby P for example.

Most nurses including all the women in myfamily are dedicated hard working people

For the next three years I am going to working my arse off

Soical workers and nurses should work in partnership to insure that their pathients are recieving the best possible care

Not arguing about which one does more. They are both highly demanding jobs physically and emotionally
xx