Furious health unions line up to slam Matt Hancock over ‘slap in the face’ 1% pay rise for medics

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Furious health unions have slammed Matt Hancock over the one per cent pay rise for medics.

The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing and Unison wrote an open letter to Rishi Sunak calling for a ‘fair pay deal’.

They said NHS workers ‘have literally kept the country alive for the past year’ as coronavirus ripped across Britain.

But Mr Hancock last night claimed the one per cent pay rise for staff was ‘fair’ – costing the government over £500million a year – and said he cared about nurses.

Dr Dan Poulter, a Tory MP and former health minister, said now was not the time for pay restraint following the 1 per cent rise.

And the organisation representing NHS trusts in England say ministers have recommended an NHS staff pay rise of half what was budgeted for.

In the open letter to Mr Sunak, seen by the BBC, the unions said: ‘The proposal of a 1 per cent pay offer, not announced from the despatch box but smuggled out quietly in the days afterwards, fails the test of both honesty and fails to provide staff who have been on the very frontline of the pandemic the fair pay deal they need.

‘Our members are the doctors, nurses, midwives, porters, healthcare assistants and more, already exhausted and distressed, who are also expected to go on caring for the millions of patients on waiting lists, coping with a huge backlog of treatment as well as caring for those with Covid-19.’

NHS Providers is challenging the Government over its defence of the recommendation for health workers to receive a 1 per cent increase, which Labour says is a ‘real-terms cut’ to wages.

The organisation said detailed work had been conducted by the NHS on a long-term plan in which it claimed the Government assumed an NHS pay rise in 2021/22 of 2.1 per cent, not 1 per cent.

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said a pay rise had been ‘baked in’ to spending assumptions.

She told the Today programme: ‘We are really clear that the Government had already budgeted for a pay rise of 2.1%, so what we are saying is – given where the NHS is at, given what frontline staff have been through – it seems absolutely wrong to take from their pocket right now a pay rise that was due to them.’

Alex Norris, a Labour shadow health minister, said if his party was in government it would recommend a ‘real-terms increase in NHS pay’ to the pay body and ‘let them come back and set the figure based on the calculations that they make’.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I think we are in unprecedented circumstances.

‘This will be a pay review like no other. We’ve been out on our doorsteps clapping, we’ve been saying we’re going to recognise and thank the incredible work that the NHS staff have done.

‘So I think for us to then turn and say to the pay body we think those people deserve a pay rise, which they do, rather than what we’ve seen from the Government, which is clapping for one day and cutting their pay the next.’

Put to him that more nurses joined than left the profession last year, Mr Norris said the pandemic was ‘likely to have an impact on recruitment and retention that we are yet to truly understand’, with some set to leave after a challenging year.

He added: ‘Choosing actively when trying to balance the budget to take money from the NHS pay cut seems a very strange set of priorities to us.’

Dr Dan Poulter, a Conservative MP and former health minister, said now was not the time for pay restraint following the Government’s recommendation for an NHS staff rise of 1 per cent.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I think Matt Hancock’s point about understanding the public finances is very valid, because at some point we are going to have to pay back all the borrowing that has taken place to keep the whole country afloat during the pandemic.

‘However, for me, and I obviously condition on the fact I’ve been working alongside health professionals, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists on the front line during the pandemic, I feel it is the wrong time to be making this decision.

‘A lot of health professionals in the early part of the pandemic were working without the right equipment to protect themselves and many people have gone above and beyond the hours they are already paid for during the pandemic and have really pulled together in very difficult circumstances.

‘So for me, this is, from a moral perspective, the wrong time to be applying pay restraint.’

Dr Poulter said pay restraint had previously had a knock-on effect on the NHS’s ability to recruit permanent staff and had caused NHS agency bills to balloon, adding: ‘It is actually quite counterproductive economically to squeeze permanent wages.’

Mr Hancock told the Downing Street press conference last night the offer was based on ‘affordability’ and the pandemic had brought ‘financial consequences’.

Mr Hancock – who promised last year he would ‘fight’ to ensure the NHS was given a ‘reward’ in the aftermath of the pandemic – claimed he ‘bowed to no-one in his admiration’ for nurses, adding: ‘I learnt that at the knee of my grandmother who was a nurse.’

Unions who had demanded a 12.5 per cent increase have threatened to strike amid the bitter pay row, which could threaten the roll out of the Covid vaccines.

The Royal College of Nursing yesterday announced it was setting up a £35million fund for industrial action, while Unite said it is considering balloting for a strike.

Unison has organised a mass ‘slow clap’ next Thursday – a spin on the clap for heroes campaign – to protest Number 10’s ‘derisory’ offer.

And NHS Providers accused the Government of turning its back on predictions of a 2.1 per cent pay rise made in long-term predictions prior to the Covid pandemic.

But Mr Hancock tonight defended the proposals, saying: ‘The evidence that was put forward yesterday was on the basis of affordability.

‘We’ve proposed what we think is affordable to make sure that in the NHS people do get a pay rise.

‘I think it is fair to take into account all the considerations, the incredible hard work of those in the NHS, which means they are not part of the overall public sector pay freeze and also what’s affordable as a nation.’

Mr Hancock added: ‘I bow to no one in my admiration for nurses – I learnt that at the knee of my grandmother who was a nurse.’

Health minister Nadine Dorries – a former nurse – earlier pointed out that the rest of the public sector is facing a complete freeze, warning that the government cannot ‘afford’ to be as generous as it would like with national debt soaring towards £2.8trillion. 

In a round of interviews, she said had been ‘pleasantly surprised’ that a 1 per cent offer had been possible – and dismissed the idea that staff will quit, stressing people work in roles such as nursing because they ‘love the job’. 

Nurses described the planned pay rise as ‘insulting’, with many revealing the boost would not cover their weekly parking fees at NHS hospitals. Multiple healthcare staff said the proposal would see them take home around £3.50 extra per week.

Holly Turner, a nurse from Colchester, said it was ‘absolutely devastating’ to see the Government ‘place no value in us whatsoever’. 

Ameera Sheikh, an intensive care nurse and Unite union representative, said increasing costs of living had left people struggling on stagnant wages. She said the support the Government had shown earlier in the pandemic now feels ‘fake’. 

Sir Keir Starmer seized on the announcement to insist that ‘Covid heroes’ deserve more and shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said it showed ‘you can’t trust the Tories with the NHS’. Meanwhile, Tory MPs voiced disquiet. 

The submission from the government to the NHS pay body is for a headline 1 per cent rise, meaning that some types of staff are likely to get more and others less.

It also notes that a further 0.7 per cent hike to the pay envelope planned under the wider health service modernisation will still go ahead. 

Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: ‘Millions stood on doorsteps and clapped for health staff who’ve given their all. Let’s now stand up for their right to fair wages.

‘Give the Chancellor a slow handclap for his miserly 1 per cent. Times may be tough but this deal is below-inflation and derisory. It’s like the worst of austerity is back.

‘NHS staff have worked throughout the darkest days in health service history. They were expecting a fair increase that reflects their exceptional efforts.

‘Nurses, midwives, porters, cleaners and other health workers are upset, hurt and angry. There were 100,000 vacancies even before Covid hit. Now the health service will be losing staff quicker than they can recruit new ones.

‘This offer isn’t just bad for staff. It’s bad for the NHS and the patients it cares for.’

The RCN said in a statement: ‘A strike fund is an amount of money that can be used to support workers, who are members of a trade union, to provide some compensation for loss of earnings and campaigning during industrial action.

‘RCN council are determined to have the finances available to our members should they wish to take action.

‘In setting up this fund, the RCN will create the UK’s largest union strike fund overnight. The next steps will be decided in conjunction with our members.’

Unite national officer for health, Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe, added: ‘Following yesterday’s kick-in-the-teeth announcement that the Government wants to peg NHS pay at 1 per cent for 2021-22, Unite will be considering all its options, including the holding of an industrial action ballot, as our pay campaign mounts in the coming weeks.’  

‘Our members and all NHS staff deserve a fair and decent pay rise and a meagre 1 per cent will not cut it.’

The Royal College of Nursing said their members ‘deserve a 12.5 per cent increase’. 

Nurse Holly Turner endorsed the idea of striking to send a strong signal to the Government. She said: ‘Strike action would be a complete last resort for us and it would have to be something that could be planned carefully in order to keep our patients safe because, for all NHS staff, patient safety is priority.

‘But long term, if we’re going to keep our patients safe, if we need to take industrial action in order to do that, I think we will.’

She added: ‘We are exhausted, we are demoralised, we are fed up — but there is also an increased level of anger.’

Multiple healthcare staff said the proposal would see them take home around £3.50 extra per week.

Ameera Sheikh, an intensive care nurse and Unite union representative, said increasing costs of living had left people struggling on stagnant wages. She said the support the Government had shown earlier in the pandemic now feels ‘fake’.

‘We have treated people from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds to quite literally the leader of the country,’ she said.

‘We have sacrificed so much since the start of the pandemic, and that includes moving out of our family homes to live close to the hospital and protect our families and live in complete isolation, which is something that I’ve actually had to do. 

‘We are facing an increasingly dangerous workload in the intensive care unit, and a lot of staff being redeployed to ICU without basic intensive care training. Also, the lack of PPE and having to reuse PPE or wear expired PPE and risking our lives.’ 

Deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said: ‘It is very disappointing that the Government has said that a 1 per cent pay rise is all that is affordable when they know that the assumption was that the 2021/22 NHS pay rise would be 2.1 per cent – and that this was covered by the NHS revenue settlement announced by Theresa May in June 2018.

‘This settlement was then enshrined in a formal act of Parliament, the NHS Funding Act 2020.

‘These assumptions, published in June 2019 were, of course, made before the events of the last 12 months which have significantly strengthened the case for a larger pay rise for NHS staff.

‘In a survey of trust leaders for our evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body, 82 per cent of respondents wanted a pay uplift of at least 3 per cent, with only 14 per cent saying it should be 2 per cent or less.

‘Some will think that the Government is snatching planned pay rises from the pockets of deserving NHS staff so they don’t have to fund the extra costs of Covid-19, which the Chancellor personally committed he would meet.’

Ms Dorries said the Government ‘would love to do more’ but stressed that NHS staff have had significant rises over recent years and will still benefit from progression pay. 

She told the BBC’s Today Programme: ‘All of us, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, I don’t think there’s any of us who have not been touched or have needed NHS services over the past year.

‘The Chancellor believes that this is what we can afford to pay NHS staff across the board, and this is our recommendation to the pay review body, we will have to see what the pay review body come back and say, and we’re also waiting for feedback from unions and all stakeholders across the sector.’

She said the Government could not afford to give NHS staff in England a pay rise of more than 1 per cent.

Ms Dorries insisted nurses had received a 12 per cent increase in pay over the last three years and the average nurse’s salary is around £34,000.

‘Everybody in an ideal world would love to see nurses paid far more, in an ideal world, but we are coming out of a pandemic where we have seen huge borrowing and costs to the Government,’ she told Sky News.

Asked whether people would still be signing up to work for the NHS in light of the proposed 1 per cent pay rise and the pandemic, Health Minister Nadine Dorries told BBC Breakfast: ‘I believe nurses are about more than superficial soundbites, I think nurses love their job. They do their job because they love their job.

‘I know myself, I was a nurse myself and trained as a nurse, I became a nurse because I loved nursing.

‘I hope that those nurses who love their jobs too will stay in the NHS and stick with us through what is a difficult time.’

On Wednesday, Chancellor Rishi Sunak revealed tens of billions of pounds worth of spending in the latest Budget and compared the country’s borrowing to wartime level. 

There was no announcement on NHS pay, and in its submission to the NHS Pay Review Body today, the DHSC said that any higher than one per cent ‘would require re-prioritisation’.

It added:  ‘COVID-19 has created unavoidable direct and indirect financial impacts in the 2020-21 financial year and contributed to a challenging wider economic context.’

The pay body will make a recommendation in May, but the final decision rests with ministers. 

Unison head of health Sara Gorton said:  ‘A 1 per cent pay rise is the worst kind of insult the Government could give health workers who’ve given their absolute everything over the past year.

‘The public will be horrified. Staff will think it’s some kind of joke.’

Sir Keir attacked the pay rise, sharing the news on Twitter and writing: ‘You can’t rebuild a country by cutting nurses’ pay. ‘Give our Covid heroes a pay rise.’ 

Meanwhile, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: ‘A pay cut for NHS staff is the ultimate kick in the teeth to our NHS heroes who have done so much to keep us safe over the past year.

‘Rishi Sunak promised to be open and honest with the public yet shamefully insults every single member of NHS staff, sneaking out this announcement and failing to include any mention of NHS pay in the Budget.’

Jon Skewes of the Royal College of Midwives said the 1 per cent pay rise proposed in evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body would be an ‘absolute insult’.

He added: ‘Our members are working harder than they have ever done to deliver safe care to women and their families in the face of longstanding staffing shortages that existed prior to the pandemic.

‘Do the Government have any idea what a pay proposal like this will do to morale? Midwives have already been eyeing the door and this will undoubtedly push many of them towards it.

Royal College of Nursing general secretary Dame Donna Kinnair said: ‘This is pitiful and bitterly disappointing.

‘The Government is dangerously out of touch with nursing staff, NHS workers and the public.

‘It is not a done deal but the Government has revealed its hand for the first time. With the time remaining before the Pay Review Body recommendation, the Government can expect a backlash from a million NHS workers.

‘Taxpayers are supportive of a significant and fair pay rise for NHS workers – this year of all years.

‘If the Pay Review Body accepts the Government view, a pay award as poor as this would amount to only an extra £3.50 per week take-home pay for an experienced nurse. Nobody would think that is fair in the middle of a pandemic and it will do nothing to prevent the exodus from nursing.’

A Government spokesman said: ‘Over one million NHS staff continue to benefit from multi-year pay deals agreed with trade unions, which have delivered a pay rise of over 12 per cent for newly-qualified nurses and will increase junior doctors’ pay scales by 8.2per cent.

‘Pay rises in the rest of the public sector will be paused this year due to the challenging economic environment, but we will continue to provide pay rises for NHS workers, on top of a £513 million investment in professional development and increased recruitment.

‘That’s with record numbers of doctors and 10,600 more nurses working in our NHS, and with nursing university applications up by over a third.

‘The independent pay review bodies will report in late spring and we will consider their recommendations carefully when we receive them.’

In the document, the DHSC says the pandemic has ‘placed a huge strain on both public and NHS finances’.

‘The economic outlook for 2021/22 remains uncertain and pay awards must be both fair and affordable,’ it wrote.

‘The government announced a pause in public sector pay rises for all workforces, with an exception for employees with basic full-time equivalent salaries of £24,000 or under and for the NHS. 

‘In settling the DHSC and NHS budget, the government assumed a headline pay award of 1 per cent for NHS staff. Anything higher would require re-prioritisation.’

They added that this increase was still above the CPI rate of inflation, whilst some staff would see a higher rise under a previously-agreed deal. 

Around 1.3 million public sector workers will see a pay freeze while those earning less than £24,000 guaranteed a pay rise of at least £250. 

Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail said: ‘The Government’s evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body, due to report in May, saying that it wants the pay of NHS staff pegged at 1 per cent, is callous and takes no account of the public mood.’

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, who chairs the British Medical Association council, said: ‘This is a total dereliction of the Government’s moral duty and obligation to a workforce that is keeping the NHS on its feet and patients alive.’

He added: ‘This comes as a kick in the teeth after a decade in which doctors have experienced real terms pay cuts of up to 30 per cent and in the same week as the Chancellor has announced a huge increase in the taxation on doctor’s pensions that will leave virtually all doctors worse off.’

Rachel Harrison, GMB National Officer, said: ‘This news will come as yet another kick in the teeth for NHS workers.

‘A day after the Budget giveaways for some, the Government is attempting to impose either a 1 per cent pay rise on NHS workers or more cuts after a decade of austerity.

‘Our members in the NHS have risked everything to battle the coronavirus and keep the public safe – a below inflation rise would be a paltry insult.’ 

Ms Dorries also insisted there would be ‘no cuts’ to NHS budgets going forward.

Budget documents revealed there is a planned cut of £30 billion in day-to-day spending at the Department for Health and Social Care from April of this year, falling from £199.2billion to £169.1billion.

Ms Dorries said: ‘That £30billion, I believe, was a reduction on the pandemic spending – there are actually real-time increases going into the NHS budget year on year.

‘That figure, I’m afraid, is completely wrong – that’s not on our annual funding of the NHS, that was on our pandemic budget, which is completely separate.

‘There are absolutely no cuts moving forward to frontline NHS services either in waiting lists, accident and emergency. There are just no cuts moving forward – there are real-time increases going into the NHS budget.’