04 May 2007
Senior NHS managers are 'deeply disappointed' with the award of a 1.3% pay rise this year.
Health minister Lord Hunt announced this week that board-level managers would receive a pay hike equivalent to the average award given to hospital consultants.
The rise applies to senior managers in strategic health authorities, ambulance trusts, special health authorities and primary care trusts and includes finance directors and chief executives. It does not apply to NHS trusts, which have remuneration committees to set their senior managers' pay locally. Non-executive directors and chairs in all NHS organisations, including trusts, will also receive 1.3%.
Hunt added that payments under the bonus scheme for senior executives had yet to be finalised but would be published shortly.
Jon Restell, chief executive of Managers in Partnership, the union for senior NHS managers, said he was 'deeply disappointed' with the pay award. 'Even the most conservative inflation figure is 2.7% and the Retail Price Index is 4.2%. When your basic pay does not keep up with prices, it is being cut,' he added.
'The government decided last year that no very senior manager in a PCT, SHA or ambulance service that failed to meet its financial control targets would get a basic award, irrespective of the personal performance of the individual.'
The health secretary decides on pay rises for senior managers but Hunt proposed that the Senior Salaries Review Body should do the job from 2008. Restell said MiP was consulting with its members on whether to back the proposal.
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