UNISON, the UK’s biggest union, reports that NHS staff are to ask English MPs to deliver on promised pay talks which have been delayed in order to boost the morale of a workforce battling the winter crisis.
As a result, healthcare workers are being encouraged to write to their local MPs asking them to urge health and social care secretary West Streeting to negotiate between unions and NHS employers.
According to UNISON, the aim of these negotiations would be to rectify the issues with the Agenda for Change salary scales (NHS pay bands), which have been the root cause of several recent disagreements.
In July, when the government accepted the NHS pay review recommendation of a 5.5 per cent salary increase for 2024-25, the government also promised to modernise Agenda for Change and deliver funding to make this possible. In December, however, the government said the NHS pay rise would actually be no more than 2.8 per cent for 2-025-26. The cost of salary structure reform would outweigh that of a wage rise, and so some staff would end up with very little.
UNISON also says that the government handed the responsibility for fixing Agenda for Change to the pay review body, which would slow down the time it would take for reform to happen. The union calls upon minsters to honour their commitment to reopen pay negotiations, and that waiting for the NHS pay review process would take too long without government intervention.
In November, UNISON, the Royal College of Nursing, and Unite wrote to Wes Streeting urging him to take the pay review into his own hands and enter into talks over salary structure reform and the coming annual wage rise.
UNISON head of health Helga Pile said: “In the summer, ministers promised to open negotiations with unions and sort out the NHS pay structure. That hasn’t happened and frustrated NHS staff who’d pinned their hopes on talks are now weskit their local MP to give the health secretary a nudge.
“The pay review body process is from a bygone era and should be axed. A modern NHS needs 21st century pay practices to keep and recruit the staff required to deal with the multiple crises it currently faces.
“The health and care secretary says he wants to improve patient care, make the NHS more efficient and turn around its fortunes.
“NHS staff know that the best way to do that is to save time and money by dealing directly with the unions on pay. It will take a huge effort to get the struggling NHS back on its feet and MPs know that staff are key to achieving that.”
