NHS staff offered three-year pay deal

10 Apr 08
The government looked to have averted the threat of pay strikes spreading to the NHS after negotiating a three-year pay deal with two major unions this week.

11 April 2008

The government looked to have averted the threat of pay strikes spreading to the NHS after negotiating a three-year pay deal with two major unions this week.

Unison and the Royal College of Nursing will consult their members on the package, which would give non-medical staff a rise of 2.75% this year, with 2.4% in the second year and 2.25% in the third, taking the cumulative increase to 7.58%. Other elements of the deal are designed to provide an extra lift for the lowest paid staff.

Karen Jennings, Unison's head of health, noted that the deal, negotiated with the Department of Health and NHS Employers, was 'the highest in the public sector' and in line with the NHS Pay Review Body's recommendation of 2.75% for 2008/09.

'We will be asking our executive to consider recommending this deal to members as a well-balanced package in the forthcoming consultation,' she said.

RCN general secretary Peter Carter added: 'We are delighted to have won a commitment to reopen pay talks should inflation rise sharply or if there are significant changes to the labour market.'

The government hopes the deal will be enough to head off industrial action by NHS workers as it attempts to hold down pay across the public sector. Chancellor Alistair Darling welcomed the announcement, saying the three-year deal 'provides further stability for the wider economy'.

But a coalition of other health unions, including Unite and the Royal College of Midwives, opposed the deal. In a joint statement, they said they would accept 2.75% for 2008/09, but believed the offer for the next two years 'would represent a real-terms pay cut'.

The government is already facing strike action over pay by teachers and civil servants later this month. And this week, the prospect of industrial action in local government increased as Unison said it would recommend rejection of a 2.45% pay offer.

A spokesperson said members would be told that 'if we are to get the employers back to the negotiating table it would take considerable strike action'.

The British Medical Association has also branded the increases recommended by the doctors' pay review body – and agreed by the government – as 'unacceptable'. Hospital doctors are set to receive 2.2%, with an estimated 0.2% average rise in GP practice income.

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