Strong public support in Wales for pay increase for nurses – poll

A new opinion poll has revealed that the majority of people in Wales back a pay increase for nurses – but less than of third of those questioned said they would be willing to pay more tax to fund it.

The Barn Cymru poll conducted by YouGov for ITV Cymru Wales and Cardiff University, revealed that 86% of people in Wales support raising NHS nurses’ salaries, but under a third of those polled (29%) said they would be willing to pay more tax in order to finance the increase.

Although the support for nurses’ pay rise in this poll was “about as high as you get” from polling data according to Dr Jac Larner from Cardiff University’s Welsh Governance Centre, nearly half of those polled either didn’t know how it should be funded or didn’t agree with the options offered in the poll.

21% of those polled would prefer other services to be cut in order to fund the pay rise and very few (5%) would support a reduction in spending in NHS services to fund the pay rise.

Confusion

Dr Larner, from Cardiff University’s Welsh Governance Centre said: “When we ask how to fund those things, there is a lot of confusion.

“The economy is complicated and it’s made more complicated, when, during strike negotiations, there seems to be a period of time where the government will hold out and say ‘we can’t afford to do this’ and then a few weeks later there is a settlement.

“So therefore, it’s probably not entirely clear in people’s minds how we fund these things in the first place. It’s not unsurprising that people aren’t entirely sure.”

Barn Cymru is a collaborative partnership between ITV Cymru Wales, the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, and the polling agency YouGov.

YouGov polled a representative sample of 1,081 Welsh voters, aged 16+, between February 3 and February 7 for ITV Cymru Wales and Cardiff University.