Pensions: lessons from the past.

I had listened intently for about 10 minutes nodding with the occasional ‘ah yes, I see’ for good measure. I had long passed the point when I could have asked a sensible question and would undoubtedly have shown that I had in fact not understood one word of what I was being told about my pension. The language was strangely familiar; I thought I really should be able to understand this but nothing made much sense; lump sum, additional voluntary contribution, taxable income, employer contribution and death in service! I know I am not alone (and I have been reassured that I am not dim as I might think), as the most adroit financial adviser has difficulty in explaining pensions to their clients. I have adopted a very simplistic, if pessimistic, approach to my own pension; what I will receive as a pension in later life is dependent on what I, and my employer, pay in to my pension fund over the years of my employment. In today’s financial environment, the likelihood is I will have to pay more for a smaller pension and that I will have to work for a longer period of time. The upside to all of this, is that we are all enjoying a much longer life expectancy than our grandparents. Personally, I do not want to retire but would like to work well into what we used to call ‘old age’. I do not, however, buy the Government’s relativist approach to pensions, which is; if pensions are lousy in the private sector, they have got to be equally lousy in the public sector. Nurses are being made to feel that they are selfishly cashing in on unmerited public sector pensions. I am not suggesting that we do not need to address pension provision in the current economic climate (which day-by-day is looking more uncertain and the full effect of which has likely not yet fully impacted on the NHS). Times are tough but my hunch is they are going to get a lot tougher. Nurses are at risk of unfair treatment in the current scramble to reach a settlement on pensions. Nursing remains a largely female profession and, for nurses who may have children and a career break, the proposed change will penalize them from the current scheme where pension is based on the final salary to a scheme where it would be based on an average taken over the period of employment. Nurses will not only receive reduced pensions in later life, but will also endure ongoing low pay in comparison to other public sector workers. I wonder what Dame Sarah Swift would think of the current situation. Dame Sarah was a key figure in nursing in the 1900s and a co-founder of the College of Nursing (now the Royal College of Nursing (RCN)) for whom lack of pensions for nurses, was a main concern (RCN, 2005). She was involved with the Royal National Pension Fund for Nurses and was influential in improving nurse education. She was a Matron of Guy’s Hospital and came out of retirement to support the nursing effort in the First World War. Dame Sarah’s inspiring and beautiful portrait that hangs in Guys’ Hospital gives no indication of her diminutive stature but does tell of her unfussy approach and determination. Dame Sarah achieved much, but shunned the lime light or any undue attention, and I have no doubt that she would have accorded with the Scottish straightforwardness of the inhabitants of Dundee where she trained at the Royal Infirmary. Dame Sarah not only believed in nursing for what we can achieve for others, but she also worked in support of the material and social needs of nurses a lesson we could learn from her and apply to the current pension situation. In her later life, Dame Sarah spent much of her energy ensuring the welfare of nurses and critically, for the introduction of a pension. If Dame Sarah was here today to argue our cause, I am sure she would be challenging nurses to organize themselves effectively and to have the prerequisite confidence in themselves to be real change makers for the profession. Dame Sarah’s work indicates that she was relentless and unyielding in her standards of nursing practice, and, as such, demanding of her colleagues. However, this also appears to have been matched by a genuine interest in her staff and their welfare. In her later life, Dame Sarah committed herself to establishing sports and recreational facilities for nurses and the Nurses League she established at Guy’s Hospital, which provided support to individual nurses falling on hard times, continued up until very recently. The outcome of the current debate and negotiations on our pensions is unclear. However, as I write, slow progress seems to be being made; importantly those reaching their pension age in the 10 years following April 2012 will remain within the current pension arrangements and final proposals for 2015 have been outlined (RCN, 2011). Despite the uncertainty, like Dame Sarah, we can create a climate within nursing where patients are placed first. We must support each other, collectively and individually, knowing that our collective welfare will impact on the quality of care we can provide to our patients. BJN