The headlines of a 25 percent pay rise are misleading, but you need to take a look at the evidence and balance up the facts.
Twelve healthcare unions are supporting the proposed changes but you shouldn’t let the figures in the headlines sway your decision to accept, what is essentially, a sub-inflation pay rise and a further cut to both pay and entitlements.
However, we think the unions should encourage you to examine all the facts – rather than simply a glamorous newspaper headline.
At the time of writing only the GMB has recommended its members reject the deal.
The agreement that was reached with NHS Employers, the body that negotiates on behalf of the government, applies to medical staff including nurses, midwives, healthcare assistants and paramedics, but not doctors, dentists and some senior NHS managers.
You can view the proposed agenda for change pay scales and the full consultation document.
It’s below the rate of inflation.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts that RPI inflation is set to increase by 9.6% over the next three years, which means a 6.5% pay rise is significantly below the rate of inflation.
NHS staff have already endured a 14% real-terms pay cut in the past 7 years – do we really deserve another?
The percentages are misleading.
Unions are advertising a 25% increase in pay for some staff over the next three years – but this figure includes increments you are already on track for.
The chart below demonstrates the true total pay rise, excluding the increments, you will receive. Some of these are well below the advertised 6.5% and none of them hit the headlining 25%.
Image: Samantha MargerisonYou need to take deductions into account.
Staff would likely move between contribution points on deductibles such as pension contributions, student loans or tax – the change would see the majority of band 5s move from 7.1% to 9.2% a year pension contributions.
While this would be the case with pay progression anyway it should be taken into account when working out take-home pay and the final effect on wages as it would be possible take-home pay could be less after the rise.
Yearly incrementation will be a thing of the past.
Presently staff receive yearly incrementation to their pay, this not only reflects their experience and loyalty to the service but helps to ensure staff receive a regular reward for their hard work.
Under the proposed scheme staff could go several years without any significant increase in pay as progression points are significantly spaced out.
Band 6 and 7 will see only two increments over a five year period while staff at band 8 and above will be forced to wait five years for a single rise.
The proposal document suggests those staff whose wages will fall on an incremental pay gap amount at the end of the three years could be forced to wait a further three or four years so see another rise.
Increments will no longer be automatic.
Historically, increments have been linked with time of service but the proposals will formally link them with performance requirements.
To move onto the next pay point staff will have had to:
- Completed our yearly appraisal.
- Have no live disciplinary actions on our record.
- Have completed all our mandatory/statutory training.
- And if you’re a line-manager you must have completed all your staff’s appraisals too (5).
If your employing organisation or line manager feel you have not met these targets they would withhold this incrementation.
Experienced staff will not be rewarded.
The proposal ensures new staff would be rewarded quickly with faster incremental progression but the proposed pay deal would see long-serving, experienced, staff rewarded the least.
The 52% of NHS staff who are currently at the top of their banding will only receive a 6.5% rise.
It will improve recruitment but not retention.
The increased starting salaries and quick pay progression should work wonders for recruitment but will do nothing for the retention of experienced and long-serving staff.
Cuts to unsociable hours.
The way some unsociable hours payments are made is changing, these will be assigned a financial figure rather than a percentage increase meaning the percentage enhancement will drop over the three year period.
Removal of unsociable enhancement on sick pay.
Buried in the official proposal document it reveals that new entrants to the NHS, appointed with effect from 1st July 2018 onwards, will not have access to the payment of unsocial hours during occupational sick leave. This means sick pay will be paid at the basic rate only.
Staff who leave the NHS or have a break in service would also be subject to this change.
It unclear if this rule will also be applied to maturity leave, carers leave or bereavement leave.
There is no long-term plan.
We have a deal for the first three years, but what is the plan after that? What will the incremental points be? Will we keep unsociable hours payments and annual leave allowances past this point? We need a long-term promise to ensure NHS pay will be above the rate of inflation and staff will not see a further pay cut.
The Unions think we can’t do any better.
The Royal College of Nursing’s own Chief Negotiator, Josie Irwin, warned earlier this year that staff should be ‘realistic’ with their pay expectations and more recently said admitted that Unions couldn’t push for a better deal as Nurses are not prepared to strike.
Following the pay announcement Ms Irwin went on to tell the NursingTimes she thinks; “It is the best possible deal we could negotiate given the current climate“.
How can recommending another real terms pay cut be the strategy of our unions?
This is an interesting analysis. I certainly thought it sounded too good to be true.However many people working in NGO health providers, such as charity funded organisations have not had the `luxury’ of :
annual increments, progression points, equal unsocial hours.
1.Annual increments .
2.In some places increments are already on the recommendation of line manager only and rarely happen.
3.In some places shift patterns, and contractual working patterns, had changed long ago reducing `unsocial’ hours entitlement.
So for some the proposal still seems a useful improvement. It is also a concern for those working for charities, since reduced donations income clearly influences how such pay proposals can be met.
It adds another pressure for organisations also providing healthcare which is free at all levels.
Nurses in general practice are not aligned to AFC, their GP employers only give pay increases if they want to. There’s always an excuse why they can’t do so each year.
Thank you for a good analysis – but it would be helpful if you pointed out the true fact that there is 1 NHS Union with the sense and courage to recommend that we reject a divisive and misleading pay proposal. That Union is the GMB and I advise everyone to join it
http://www.gmb.org.uk/newsroom/reject-nhs-pay-deal
Ok, I’m slightly sick of the misleading articles appearing now which attack the NHS pay proposal.
As a unison rep here are 11 reasons you should support it.
1. The unions brokered this deal with a government who hate the NHS and everything it stands for. Anything that is achieved is a miracle. When you couple that with the apathy of many union members, and the lack of morale and fighting spirit in the workforce it truly is quite an accomplishment. Only last week the Tories also wanted staff to give up a days annual leave to pay for the pay rise.
2. It dissolves all of the overlaps in the banding system. This means if we accept a promotion, for the first time ever we are guaranteed to earn more than the people we are appraising and supervising.
3. It reduces all bands to only 2 or 3 increments. The top of the band gets a higher rate, and this is the proper going rate for the job. Instead of taking a Band 4 clerk six years to earn the same as the clerk sat next to her doing exactly the same job, regardless of experience, it will now only take 3 years. Equal pay for equal work.
4. It dissolves band 1. All cleaners and porters, working on the margin of basic minimum wage, will move to Band 2. No one will be allowed to be recruited to band 1 after December 2018.
5. No one, NO ONE will suffer any detriment. It is written into the new “Framework agreement on the proposed reform of Agenda for Change”. Section 2.12 “The principle of NO DETRIMENT will apply”. All staff get a meaningful pay rise.
6. All staff, but especially low paid cleaners, healthcare assistants and new nurses will have a more attractive starting salary, around £3k more than at present. That’s an increase of 17% for new healthcare assistants.
7. Even those at the top of a band are guaranteed 3% in year 1, 2.8% in year 2, and 1.7% in year 3. Guaranteed in these dodgy brexit days. What other company has locked their staff into that deal?
8. The deal is fully funded. Unlike Police, schools etc, the government are funding it. This means we don’t have to cut services to get paid better.
9. The new system means if you don’t get an appraisal on time you automatically move to the top of the band as it is fully funded (see last point). The system will be designed on the principle that staff should receive the support, training and line manager input they need to progress as soon as they are eligible (which is years faster than before (see point 3).
10. The best deal for staff is 29% uplift for a new ward sister or equivalent. 29%! Unions did that!
11. There is a commitment to improve the internal staff bank rates (section 5.2) so taxpayers money is not given to a staffing agency’s shareholders, but to staff who offer time to their own hospital staff bank.
Hope this helps.
I can give you 101 reasons this pay deal is wrong starting with the deceptive big percentages Evey single one of them with exception of band l and top band is fraudulent, then its the loss of increments all of them. Management won’t re band , do you honestly think they will take anyone up the increments. No cost saving, reduction of rates unsocial hours .Allowing terms of contract reductions is. financial suicide most of us only survive because of the unsocial hours we work. Unison and all the others are supposed to be representing us not this government
Take what’s offered now then do your utmost to unseat the Tories whenever the next GE happens in the sure knowledge that Labour will do justice to all oppressed public service workers and save their services from privatisation / undo what privatisation has already happened.
This pay rise, which on average appears to be only 2% a year, for many nurses, and is currently only for NHS staff and Nuses. Public health nurses paid by the NHS on an incremental scale are currently being included in the proposed “pay rise”. Those nurses NOT paid by the NHS and are on an incremental pay scale, MAY NOT get a pay rise AT ALL.. This in effect excludes thousands of nurses throughout the country from any offer what so ever as we are neither included in local government negotiations or NHS negotiations.This includes School Nurses, Health Visitors and many others. Although many nurses are now employed by local government on NHS terms and conditions they should, but do not, benefit from the proposed agreement – under the current system, The funding made available by the Treasury would not flow to local government employers. Why has this information not publisised?? It has taken me 3 days to obtain any information. I have sent several emails including my local union rep who has yet to reply to my querry. So basically, I feel we have been let down and well and truley ignored. Who is going to stand up for us??
This pay rise, which on average appears to be only 2% a year, for many nurses, and is currently only for NHS staff and Nuses. Public health nurses paid by the NHS on an incremental scale are currently being included in the proposed “pay rise”. Those nurses NOT paid by the NHS and are on an incremental pay scale, MAY NOT get a pay rise AT ALL.. This in effect excludes thousands of nurses throughout the country from any offer what so ever as we are neither included in local government negotiations or NHS negotiations.This includes School Nurses, Health Visitors and many others. Although many nurses are now employed by local government on NHS terms and conditions they should, but do not, benefit from the proposed agreement – under the current system, The funding made available by the Treasury would not flow to local government employers. Why has this information not publisised?? It has taken me 3 days to obtain any information. I have sent several emails including my local union rep who has yet to reply to my querry. So basically, I feel we have been let down and well and truley ignored. Who is going to stand up for us??
You have used the WRONG figures to advise people on percentages: those are the future bandings, not the ‘journeys’ for current staff.
Congrats for giving out false info – maybe wait and give everyone chance to read and understand (and yourselves) before slating this deal?
Increments are supposed to be based on performance and personal development anyway?
I think unsocial pay on sick was removed some years ago, no? Why would you get paid unsocial while you are on sick leave? you aren’t working unsocial hours…
not for bands 1-3, the lowest paid
The figures are correct and taken from the NHSEmployers document. They have not yet released the final pay scales for after 2021.
For lowest paid for many there will be deficit reduction of other budget heads – Universal credit; housing benefit, WFTC will reduce. National Insurance and tax payments increase. So, it is not as good a deal for lowest paid as appears. Top of Band 5 nurses close to pension age have lost massively on their pensions over the last 8 years. The government has played canny and those leaving the profession will have a substantially lower pension and could have been helped back on track. They haven’t been. We are going to be flooded by newly qualified – and who is going to train them? Those with only a few years under their belts, but top of scale within those few years (first few years in ward work often spent finding the ‘right perch’ moving between wards etc. Not the best placed for training others. Experienced, capable nurses let down by RCN.
Is it possible to do the same sums for bands 1-4 so they too can see how the offer impacts once increments have been taken into account?
I would like to see this breakdown across all grades just to amplify how fradulant this offer really is
I’m quite torn regarding this. I do think we deserve more money for what we do, but at the same time I’m doing ok with life. We have our own home, we don’t go on luxury holidays and I have to do bank shifts if anything special is coming up e.g birthdays or big days out, but I’m only part time and we don’t exactly struggle. This would be more money, even if it’s not what we ideally want. And I do worry that if we decline it there won’t be a better offer. Really not sure what to do!