Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what account is taken of forecasts for the rate of inflation in determining pay increases for nurses.

The Government makes its determinations informed by recommendations from the independent NHS Pay Review Body. In reaching its recommendations, the Review Body is required to have regard to:

- the need to recruit, retain and motivate suitably able and qualified staff;

- regional/local variations in labour markets and their effects on the recruitment and retention of staff;

- the funds available to the Health Departments, as set out in the Government’s Departmental Expenditure Limits;

- the Government’s inflation target;

- the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in the National Health Service; and

- the overall strategy that the NHS should place patients at the heart of all it does and the mechanisms by which that is to be achieved.

The Review Body is also required to take careful account of the economic and other evidence submitted by the Government, Trades Unions, representatives of NHS employers and others.