Commenting on the announcement today (Friday) of a salary increase for the lowest-paid NHS workers in England to prevent them from falling below the national minimum wage when it rises in April*, UNISON head of health Helga Pile said:
“If the government did the right thing and delivered a decent pay rise on time, there’d be no need for this endless cycle of interim top-ups to stop NHS wages dropping below the legal minimum.
“Ministers have to move away from the glacial pay review body process that’s unable to keep up with the 1 April date each year when staff are due their annual wage increase.
“NHS workers, unions and employers expected to see the government make good on promised direct talks in the current financial year so low pay issues could be resolved properly, by modernising wage bands.
“A system that grinds along needing emergency action every year to correct illegal wages is clearly not working. That does nothing to help morale or make essential workers feel valued because of successive government failures to sort out low pay for good.
“It also means that when the annual pay rise does come, the staff on the lowest bands will be little or no better off.
“The annual farce of having to raise the lowest hourly rates to avoid the NHS paying illegal wages is not helping recruitment either.
“Health services remain many thousands of workers short, yet staff are key to getting the NHS back on its feet. Recruitment rates won’t rise if the lowest wages continue to hover barely above the legal minimum.
“NHS pay is once again lagging behind the real living wage rate of £12.60 an hour, which supermarkets chains are already putting in place.
“With pay so close to the legal minimum, tens of thousands of NHS staff will be excluded from cost-spreading salary-sacrifice schemes that actually help their higher paid colleagues manage expenses like car parking and childcare. There’s been no sign of government action on this despite unions and employers both drawing attention to the continuing unfairness.
“There’s no doubt staff will be left with little choice but to leave for jobs with better pay and less stress at a time when the NHS must do all it can to boost its workforce to tackle the treatment backlog.
“The extra time and resources spent on administration to fix this problem each year are also at odds with the government’s efficiency drive.”
Notes to editors:
– *The interim pay boost amounts to 28p per hour, meaning those on band 1 and 2 will receive £12.36, just 15p above the statutory minimum (£12.21) come April. More details here
– UNISON is the UK’s biggest union and the largest in the NHS and ambulance sector. It has more than 1.3 million members providing public services – in education, local government, the NHS, police service and energy. They are employed in the public, voluntary and private sectors.
Media contacts:
Anthony Barnes M: 07834 864794 E: a.barnes@unison.co.uk
Liz Chinchen M: 07778 158175 E: press@unison.co.uk
The article Emergency NHS pay top-up shows why prompt wage talks are needed, says UNISON first appeared on the UNISON National site.
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