18 February 2005
Pay parity in the health service was thrown into the spotlight this week with chief executives' salaries breaching the £200,000 mark for the first time as Unison entered final negotiations on a record-breaking equal pay settlement.
A survey from Incomes Data Services revealed that the earnings of NHS chiefs have far outpaced the rest of the health workforce. Derek Smith, the chief executive of Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust, was the highest-paid chief executive at £212,500. His salary increased by 35% last year.
The chiefs at two other London hospitals – Guy's and St Thomas' and Barts – were the next highest paid at £192,000 and £182,000. They received salary increases of between 8% and 16%.
The NHS Confederation refused to comment on individual pay awards but its chief executive Gill Morgan said the most appropriate comparison should be with the chief executives of FTSE 250 companies. 'Major NHS trusts are huge organisations and they need to be able to attract high-calibre chief executives,' she said.
But the figures will increase pressure on the Department of Health to rein in trusts, with the Treasury's 3.5% pay cap for other public sector workers.
They may also strengthen Unison's resolve, which was this week in final negotiations to settle an eight-year equal pay claim against North Cumbria Acute NHS Trust ahead of an employment tribunal on February 21.
The case was lodged on behalf of 1,500 female workers in 14 jobs, including nursing and catering. Unison expects the women to receive between £35,000 and £200,000 each, including up to six years' back pay from the date of the 1997 claim.
The trust is currently negotiating final terms with the union and sources confirmed that it had dropped an initial request to pay the workers in instalments. But it may pay out without accepting full liability to try to prevent the union from using the case as a precedent elsewhere.
Dave Prentis, Unison's general secretary, said Agenda for Change had 'remedied discrimination', but the union would now press for back pay for female staff who had been paid unfairly in the past.
This claim was lodged during the Agenda for Change negotiations and could run into millions of pounds.
PFfeb2005
