Cap on salary increases will see some staff earn just £5 extra a week while facing soaring costs and greater workload

About 1.3 million NHS staff are to receive a 1% pay rise that will see nurses, midwives and radiographers earn barely £5 a week more next year, in a move that prompted a furious reaction from health unions.



The government’s decision to limit NHS wage increases to 1% a year or freeze them for the seventh successive year led its own advisors to warn that the policy must end. Salary caps could exacerbate already serious understaffing in the NHS by making it less attractive to work for, especially as workloads are growing, the NHS pay review body (PRB) concluded.

Christine McAnea, the head of health at Unison said: “This deal amounts to less than five pounds a week for most midwives, nurses, cleaners, paramedics, radiographers and other healthcare staff.

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“It’s a derisory amount in the face of soaring fuel bills, rising food prices and increasing transport costs.

“The government’s insistence on the 1% cap has tied the PRB’s hands. As the PRB itself admits, it can no longer prevent health employees’ pay falling way behind wages in almost every part of the economy.

“Without the cash to hold on to experienced employees, the NHS staffing crisis will worsen as people leave for less stressful, better rewarded jobs elsewhere. This can only be bad news for patients.”

The 1% pay cap is due to stay in place until the current parliament ends in 2020. Next year’s 1% limit will also apply to doctors and dentists in the NHS.

The settlement for 2017-18 is the sixth year in a row in which NHS staff’s annual pay rise has been lower than the cost of living. Inflation, as measured by the Retail Prices Index, is running at 3.2%

In its latest annual report to ministers, the PRB, an independent body, said: “It is clear that current public sector pay policy is coming under stress. There are significant supply shortages in a number of staff groups and geographical areas. There are widespread concerns about recruitment, retention and motivation that are shared by employers and staff side alike.”

The report said that NHS staff pay will also be eroded even more than was expected during the coming year because “inflation is set to increase during 2017 compared to what was forecast, leading to bigger cuts in real pay for staff than were anticipated in 2015, when current public sector pay policy was announced by the new UK government”.

Warning that action was needed to tackle severe staff shortages, the PRB added that “local pay flexibilities to address recruitment and retention issues are not being used to alleviate the very shortages they were designed to address. Our judgment is that we are approaching the point when the current pay policy will require some modification, and greater flexibility, within the NHS.”

The case for change was even stronger because “pay matters for the attractiveness of the service”, so giving staff too little could deter potential future staff from joining the NHS, and also because the impact of axing bursaries for student nurses “is still uncertain”, it said. “Take-home pay is important for existing NHS staff and many saw a cut in their take-home pay in cash terms in 2016-17, whilst at the same time their workloads were increasing.”

The 138,930 members of the armed forces will also have their pay rise pegged at 1%, despite their pay review body cautioning that doing so risks causing recruitment problems, damaging morale and even the services’ future capacity.

The armed forces pay review body (AFPRB) noted in its report that service personnel were concerned about a “perfect storm” of increasing national insurance, changes in tax credits and higher rental charges for military housing.

It said: “If the private sector continues to recover and if inflation continues its upward trajectory, we could foresee recruitment becoming more challenging and morale being adversely impacted.”

Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, condemned the 1% rise as “a bitter blow” that “will deter new people from joining the nursing profession at the very moment it is failing to retain staff and European colleagues in particular head for the door.”

Justin Madders, the shadow health minister, said extending the cap by another year was “totally self-defeating and unsustainable” and could force hospitals to spend even more on agency staff. Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, said ministers were treating the NHS and armed forces personnel “like dirt”. Public sector staff had done enough in recent years to help get the UK back on track, he said.

The Department of Health said: “The dedication and sheer hard work of our NHS staff is absolutely crucial to delivering world-class care for patients. We are pleased to announce that all NHS staff will receive a 1% pay increase.”