NHS staff should get at least a 4% pay rise say independent experts
NHS staff should receive a pay rise of at least 4%, independent experts have advised, setting healthcare workers on a collision course with ministers who have set a firm maximum of 3%.
The pay review body (PRB) will recommend that NHS personnel should an increase this year of somewhere between 4% and 5%, the Guardian understands, despite warnings from the government that undertaking such advice would break the bank.
Health unions warned that even a rise of that order will do little to appease nurses, midwives and other staff – and struggle to head off the prospect of strike action across the NHS.
They have stressed that NHS workers are struggling with the soaring cost of energy, petrol, food and other basic commodities, which have left some having to use food banks.
Unions are seeking rises that at least match inflation, which is running at 9.1%, the highest for 40 years, though the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is seeking an increase five percentage points higher – 14%.
For every extra 1% NHS staff in England receive, it would cost NHS England about £700m a year, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has calculated.
Pat Cullen, the RCN’s general secretary, claimed that a pay offer of 4% would be “an insult”, resulting in a real-terms pay cut for nurses and exacerbate the NHS’s shortage of them.
“A pay rise of 4% would be an insult, leaving an experienced nurse more than £1,400 a year worse off. Ministers have a very important choice to make – deliver an above inflation pay rise for the nursing profession or the current exodus of staff will continue, putting more patients at risk,” she said.
Health experts and staff groups had widely expected the PRB to recommend a 3% rise for 2022/23, the same sum as last year, when
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