Health service unions have rejected “divisive” proposals to introduce a two-year freeze on increments for all staff in England from April in return for an “extremely limited” guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.
The British Medical Association joined The Royal College of Nursing and Unison in throwing out suggestions made by the NHS Employers body that they enter into a national enabling framework that would allow NHS organisations to agree the pay increment freeze.
The BMA said in a statement that doctors, like other healthcare staff, were already subject to a two-year pay freeze – a real-terms pay cut – and were not prepared to be take a further hit.
Rather than “penalising hard-working staff”, the government would do better to focus on reducing whole other areas of NHS expenditure that currently seemed to have “special protection” such as “huge returns” for companies on investments in new pharmaceuticals and PFI projects, it added.
The RCN agreed. Its chief executive and general secretary Peter Carter said that nurses up and down the country were furious at the plans, which were seen as both “divisive” and an “unwarranted attack” on hard-working personnel.
“Asking staff to give up their increments when, in return, only some will have a guarantee of no-compulsory redundancy is, frankly, just not on. We are also highly sceptical that the Employers would be able to deliver their part of the bargain with job security. After all, the RCN’s Frontline First campaign has already identified 27,000 jobs earmarked to go in the NHS,” he added.
The proposals were made even more “galling” because of the “massive waste and inefficiency” in the NHS as a result of poor purchasing contracts, huge management consultancy expenditure and high levels of waste on drugs and equipment, Carter said. The RCN Council plans to ratify its decision next week.
Mike Jackson, Unison’s senior national officer for health, said meanwhile: “The funding gap in the NHS is so great that members were sceptical that Trusts would abide by a no compulsory redundancy agreement for two years. Additionally, they felt that the offer was divisive because it excluded high level clinicians such as matrons, senior occupational therapists and midwife supervisors.”
