Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the Government’s policy is on maintaining the public sector pay cap for (a) nurses and (b) care workers.

National Health Service staff that care for patients in hospital or in the community do a fantastic job. The Government is committed to ensuring NHS organisations can afford to recruit the staff they need so they can continue to deliver world class services patients and their families expect.

In the NHS pay, restraint has helped organisations to recruit an additional 33,800 (6.4%) professionally qualified clinical staff since May 2010.

Most social care staff are employed by the private or voluntary sector and are not covered by the public sector pay cap.

The NHS Pay Review Body recommendation for 2017/18, which includes nurses and midwives was accepted by the Department on 28 March this year.