Government Poised To Finally Increase NHS Workers Pay Rise
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The UK government is set to give NHS front-line staff in England a pay rise, according to a new report.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been under a huge amount of pressure to announce a pay rise for NHS staff before parliament breaks up for summer next week.
Unison, the second-largest trade union in the UK, has been campaigning for a £2,000 increase for almost a year, and it’s now been more than 100 days since a pay rise was due.
The government is poised to announce a 3% pay rise on Tuesday, July 20, coming off the back of the same recommendation made by the NHS Pay Review Body, Politico reports.
For context, the government earlier leaned on a possible pay rise of just 1%, and it comes far under the request of the Royal College of Nursing, which had asked for a 12.5% increase. It’s said to believe the agreed 3% increase is a ‘fair comprise’ compared to its earlier proposal.
In May, the Scottish government gave nurses and other health workers a 4% pay rise, plus a £500 lump sum for their invaluable work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Johnson’s inaction on the matter has seen more than 30,000 health workers sign an open letter asking the PM to pay.
‘It’s in Boris Johnson’s gift to grant staff a fair deal. Yet he’s still making them wait,’ Unison’s head of health Sara Gorton said, as per ITV News. ‘It’s 320 days since Unison wrote to Boris Johnson asking for a £2,000 increase for every NHS worker, but health workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland still don’t know what they’ll get.’
‘Staff who’ve done so much during the pandemic are being treated as an afterthought while MPs head off on their holidays, and infections are rising which means pressure is piling back on the whole health team once again. The least the government can do is confirm now that staff will get a decent pay rise,’ Gorton added.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘We are incredibly grateful to all our NHS staff. This year the government has committed to providing NHS staff with a pay uplift, at a time when uplifts in the wider public sector have been paused. In doing so, the government is acknowledging the extraordinary effort of NHS staff through the pandemic.’
‘We have received the reports from the independent pay review bodies and are now carefully considering their recommendations before responding,’ they added.
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