At the end of a day of chaos, HS employees in England will receive a 3% salary increase and announce that the government has accepted the salary review agency’s recommendation.
The House of Commons was expected to issue a statement at lunch time that failed to materialize, but a few hours later, the Ministry of Health and Social Care issued a press release stating that it would pay a 3% salary increase, going back to when the salary increase expired in April.
It will be paid to staff including nurses, paramedics, consultants, dentists and salaried general practitioners.
Sajid Javid, Minister of Health and Social Care, said: “Despite the suspension of wider wages in the public sector, the salary increase for NHS staff this year is correct, in recognition of their extraordinary efforts.
“We have solicited their suggestions from independent salary review agencies, and I am very happy to accept their suggestions completely. All employees in the range, from doctors and nurses to paramedics and porters, will receive a 3% salary increase.
“We will support the NHS because we will focus on getting through this pandemic and solving the backlog of other health problems. I will continue to do my best to support all those who work tirelessly in our medical services to take care of patients .”
Secretary of Nursing Helen Whately said: “I am determined to make the NHS the best place to work for all our employees. We will continue to invest in recruiting and retaining employees. Compared with a year ago, the number of NHS employees has increased by more than 45,300. There are nearly 9,000 nurses and more than 4,000 doctors.
“Our NHS employees have made incredible efforts to fight the epidemic in the past 18 months. I am pleased to confirm that we will fully accept the recommendations of the salary review agency this year, so employees within their scope of authority will receive a 3% bonus. Salary.”
Some unions, including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), described the payment as “chaos” and “insults.” RCN added that “the industry will not just lie down here”.
Nurses are also on the rise. Before the announcement, about a dozen nurses and members of the Royal College of Nursing gathered in the Victoria Tower Garden near the Parliament, where they held placards and banners, demanding a 12.5% salary increase.
Kafeelat Adekunle, 55, a community housewife at the Gay and St Thomas NHS Foundation in London, described the raise as “crazy.”
“I’m not happy,” she said. “They don’t listen, that’s the problem. This is just to try to stop us from taking industrial action, just to keep us quiet and shut up.
“I’m not sure if this is really good, on the contrary, it will make us more angry and the government will be full of confidence.
“The contribution of nurses and health workers during the pandemic is huge. People have died. My colleague has died. This is really depressing news.”
Unison said it was happy that the government changed its initial 1% salary increase proposal, but added that employees deserve more.
General Secretary Christina McAnea stated that the salary award is an “improvement” to the government’s “earlier, stingy 1% proposal.”
She added: “But after the past 16 months, the increased wages have been lower than the NHS employees deserve. This is lower than the wage increase of colleagues in the Scottish health sector and is not sufficient to protect the NHS.
“Porters, cleaners, nurses, paramedics and other health workers have been waiting for months. They want to be treated fairly.
“If the ministers really paid attention to the NHS last year, they could have paid. Instead, the staff had to persist until the summer-long after their wages rose.”
Pat Cullen, interim secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “After a messy day, there will be a messy announcement.
“When the Ministry of Finance estimated that the inflation rate was 3.7%, the ministers deliberately cut the actual salary of an experienced nurse by more than 200 pounds.
“Hospitals and other departments of the NHS are working hard to recruit nurses and healthcare support staff. The government has been warned that more people are about to leave. According to today’s decision, ministers have made it more difficult to provide safe care to patients.
“This announcement did not elaborate. It must be fully funded by additional funding from the NHS and provide protection for the Labor Act.”
Shadow Health Minister Justin Madders said: “Another day, another U-turn, this government has brought more chaos and confusion.
“Once again, this government had to abandon a shoddy, well-thought-out stance, and their 1% salary increase-real wage cut-was rejected by independent compensation agencies.
“The salary review agency has done what ministers can and won’t do-recognizing that our NHS employees must never be paid.
“After they are hypocritical, applauding for NHS staff and trying to cut their wages, the government must make our NHS and key staff feel supported and valued after everything they have done for us.”
