NHS unions threaten action

pharmafile | March 14, 2014 | News story | Sales and Marketing Hunt, NHS, UK, nhsprb, nurses 

Unions representing NHS staff in England have reacted strongly to a new round of below-inflation pay rises and have threatened possible industrial action.

Last year, the UK Labour party called the government’s move to scrap the 1% pay rise for more than a million NHS staff in England a ‘kick in the teeth’

In written evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body (NHSPRB), the Department of Health suggested the rise should be withheld for 1.3 million workers in 2014 because it is ‘unaffordable’.

The money should instead be used to ‘modernise’ NHS pay structures, which already include payments for things like length of service, the government said then.

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This week the government has announced the basic 1% rise, but said that 600,000 nurses and other staff who already receive ‘progression-in-job’ rises will not get it.

The NHSPRB had recommended that all staff should get the 1% regardless, and Unite’s Rachel Maskell told the BBC that this was “the straw that breaks the camel’s back”.

“People have got a right to stand up for their terms and conditions, and the government over the years have taken advantage of the fact that people are professional at their work, they are predominantly women workers, and have made a calculation that they can abuse their staff over their pay,” she said.

Unite members now want to be consulted over industrial action, Maskell added, raising the spectre of strikes for hospital staff. Unison’s Christina McAnea said the pay rise was needed to meet cost of living increases, and that this was separate from the incremental rises which recognised experience and skills.

However, the government has hit back by saying that about 6,000 nurses would have had to be laid off if the 1% pay rise had gone through across the board.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s The World at One, health secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “The whole progression pay system is mad. I mean, someone on a £50,000 salary will get a 4.7% progression pay rise, whereas someone on £14,000 would only get a 2.5% progression pay rise.”

“It shouldn’t just be about time served it should be about how well you look after patients,” Hunt suggested. Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, said the new pay deal was ‘what the country can afford’.

He told the BBC that incremental pay increases were given to more than half of NHS employees “because of time served in the job” and that these were often worth 3-4 per cent.

“The extra 1% should be confined to those who otherwise wouldn’t see any pay rise at all,” Alexander said.

Adam Hill 

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