Fourteen Agenda for Change (AfC) health unions, which represent more than 1.2 million health workers, are calling on the health secretary Yvette Cooper to conclude government talks to fix entrenched problems with NHS pay structure.
Last April, ministers imposed a 3.3 per cent pay increase for staff on the NHS Agenda for Change (AfC) salary scale, following a recommendation from the pay review body. In return, they committed to addressing problems with the increasingly outdated pay structure and backdating any improvements to April. Following the departure of previous health secretaries, progress has stalled.
CSP’s Jim Fahie, who is also secretary of the NHS AfC unions, said:
Changes to the pay structure are desperately needed and long overdue. We entered into talks in good faith and it's essential those discussions now move to a definitive outcome.
The unions have jointly said that most NHS workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland feel they are being treated as second-class, with pay awards consistently and significantly lower than those given to doctors and dentists.
AfC unions have called for talks to fix salary scales to be resumed urgently, adding that the delays mean the 2027 pay rise must also now be considered in the same set of talks.
Negotiations must take priority over diverting time and effort into the Pay Review Body (PRB) process. The CSP, along with 12 others of the 14 unions, will boycott the PRB process because the process is outdated and unable to deal with the modernisation the pay system needs to remain effective.
The unions argue that reforming the pay system is also clearly beyond the PRB’s remit.
UNISON head of health and chair of the NHS unions Helga Pile said:
‘NHS workers have been promised time and again the government will fix structural pay issues at the heart of Agenda for Change contracts. But this is unfinished business and they're still waiting.’
A government that says it cares about efficiency and better industrial relations can’t continue to put its faith in a pay review system that belongs to a bygone era.
Jim Fahie added:
Without those changes, resentment will grow over deals made with other groups of NHS workers and we risk undermining efforts to retain the staff that patients so badly need.
'With a new secretary of state now settled in, the government must return to the table without further delay and help us deliver a pay structure that fairly rewards the enormous contribution of all Agenda for Change staff.'
In Scotland, the government has scrapped the pay review body process and instead negotiates directly with unions. As a result, Scottish staff now earn more than colleagues elsewhere in the UK doing the same jobs.
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