Whilst I support nurses being paid more, and completely reject the idea that anything but the government is crippling the NHS, I can't help but feel as though an immediate almost 20% pay increase for all nurses is slightly unreasonable and unrealistic. This especially goes for the 35% pay rise I've seen being mentioned for student nurses

With newly qualified Band 5 nurses starting on £27055 per annum, this would increase to a little over £32k per annum and would be slightly under the highest earning Band 5 nurses. Then factor this pay rise to all nurses across each Band, and consider how many nurses there are. The money required would seemingly be astronomical, and I'm unsure as to how achievable and more importantly sustainable this would be for a publicly funded service

I'm not trying to start anything, nor am I on the side of the government (which I am absolutely not). I'm simply trying to understand how this would be financially possible. In the private sector pay rises such as these, with this amount of staff, would be almost impossible. How would it be doable here?