Government must ‘gift exhausted NHS staff pay rise,’ unions say

Health system’s current pay deal ends in April and polls suggest general public supports ‘significant increases’

Boris Johnson has been urged to intervene to speed up the pay review process and grant NHS workers facing “burnout” an immediate wage increase.

Fourteen health unions, representing some 1.3 million workers, have written to the prime minister warning him that coronavirus has left hospital staff feeling “demoralised and traumatised”.

They warned sites were “stretched to the limit," adding if Mr Johnson wanted to show he “cared” about NHS workers he should bring forward a wage increase for all of them.  

It comes as the current three-year NHS pay deal is set to end in April, with health secretary Matt Hancock having already instructed the NHS Pay Review Body (PRB) to report early next May on the award for 2021-22. But unions want the date brought forward. 

Polling evidence provided by the unions suggests two out of five members of the public – of the 2,000 surveyed – supported a “significant increase” across all NHS staff’s pay packets.

The unions making submissions represent not just doctors and nurses but also healthcare assistants, hospital porters, physiotherapists, midwives, dieticians, paramedics, occupational therapists and cleaners.

In the appeal to the NHS pay review process, unions argued that a wage rise was vital if the health service is to adequately deal with the challenges of the pandemic and its aftermath.

Unison’s head of health, Sara Gorton, said: “It’s in the prime minister's gift to speed up the pay review process.

“A wage rise won’t stop the virus, but it will show exhausted staff the government cares as much about them as it does about their patients.”

Dame Donna Kinnair, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “NHS staff are worse off now than 10 years ago. When tens of thousands of nurse jobs are vacant, the government cannot afford to let more leave over low pay.

“A meaningful rise will bring in new nurses and keep experienced ones in post.”

She previously hit out at Mr Johnson for “demoralising” nurses when he appeared to “inaccurately” portray their wages when asked a question during a Prime Minister’s Questions earlier this month.

The prime minister claimed nurses had been given 12.8 per cent pay increases, but Dame Donna said this was not the case.

In a letter which went public, she asked Mr Johnson to be “accurate” when discussing nurses’ pay, adding that nursing staff “are worse off now than they were in 2010” following years of wage freezes and below inflation awards.

Jon Skewes, executive director for external relations at the Royal College of Midwives, said on Sunday that if the government decided to follow through with fast-tracking wages, “over a million people in the NHS” would benefit from it.  

“Putting extra money in their pockets would not just acknowledge and recognise their hard work,” he said, “it would also put cash into struggling local economies and help families at a time when many will be facing mounting financial difficulties".