Health Services: Pay

(asked on 27th July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to their announcement on 21 July that public sector workers will receive above inflation pay rises, what assessment they have made of the impact of that announcement on the morale of those public sector healthcare workers who will not be in receipt of such a pay rise.


Answered by
Lord Bethell Portrait
Lord Bethell
This question was answered on 20th August 2020

Over one million National Health Service staff continue to benefit from the three-year Agenda for Change pay and contract reform deal agreed in partnership with NHS trade unions and employer representatives. The reforms that were agreed were not just about headline pay but introduced changes to help improve the working lives of dedicated staff. The deal introduced policies to support staff to balance their working lives with family and personal commitments and maintain their physical and mental health and wellbeing.

This deal has delivered year on year pay increases for all Agenda for Change NHS staff and has seen the lowest starting salary in the NHS increase by over 16% and the starting salary for a newly qualified nurse increase by over 12%. The NHS reward offer also includes benefits that go well beyond those offered in other sectors, for instance, a generous holiday allowance and access to the world-class NHS Pension Scheme.

The nature of the multi-year pay deal means that pay rises have already been determined for those public sector healthcare workers employed on the Agenda for Change contract and have been implemented throughout the course of the three years of the deal. The deal has seen the pay of those below the top of their pay band increase by at least 9% and pay for most staff at the top of their pay band increase by 6.5%, resulting in pay increases above Consumer Price Index inflation over the last three years.

The established mechanism for deciding pay increases in the NHS is through the independent Pay Review Body process. The NHS Pay Review Body will make pay recommendations for Agenda for Change staff in 2021 once the current pay deal ends and the Government will carefully consider these recommendations when we receive them.

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