Commenting on the 3.3% wage rise announced today (Thursday) for most NHS staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland for 2026/27, UNISON head of health Helga Pile said:
“Hard-pressed NHS staff will be downright angry at another below-inflation pay award.
“Yet again, they’re expected to keep delivering more while effectively being given less, as pay slides behind living costs. Having an increase on time for once is only small comfort.
“For thousands at the bottom of the salary scale in England, half their increase has gone on bringing their hourly pay rate up to the legal minimum.
“Ambitions to make the NHS the ‘country’s best employer’ are doomed to fail if it can’t even compete with high street supermarkets whose staff are on at least the real living wage.
“Nurses, healthcare assistants, occupational therapists, ambulance staff, porters and all the other essential health staff need proper investment in their pay.
“Ministers’ plans for the NHS stand or fall on having a stable, motivated workforce to deliver them.
“That’ll need proper progress in restoring the value wiped from wages over the past decade and fixing problems in how the NHS pay system works.
“It’s now 18 months since the government promised to set up talks to reform the Agenda for Change pay structure. Yet nothing’s changed and staff are fed up with hearing there will be jam tomorrow.
“Ministers should have done the right thing when health unions wrote to them last September. Unions wanted the hopeless pay review body process ditched in favour of direct talks to fix pay and structure at the same time.
“Before Christmas the government finally started working towards a wider-ranging, longer-term deal.
“But today there’s been a handbrake turn and a lurch back to the review body process unions have boycotted.
“Until further talks are successfully concluded, NHS workers are in the dark about who’ll benefit and by how much. For staff to have any confidence that the government is serious about funding further rises* backdated to April, they need far more detail.
“So far there are only pledges to include improvements for low-paid workers and staff in graduate professional pay bands.
“For that to mean anything the government must now clear the decks to set up proper talks with serious money on the table. And get on with it fast.”
Notes to editors:
– *The government has promised any increases in pay that result from future changes to the NHS Agenda for Change bands will be backdated to April.
– UNISON is the UK’s largest union, with 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
Dan Ashley M: 07508 080349 E: d.ashley@unison.co.uk
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