Public sector union, UNISON said yesterday it will ‘strongly resist any attempt to cut nurses’ pay whether by moving to regional pay or by using the threat of unemployment’.
Responding to the NHS Pay and Workforce Strategy plans, leaked to the Health Services Journal, UNISON deputy head of health, Mike Jackson, warned: ‘Patient care would be damaged by any attempt to cut nurses’ pay.
‘We’ve spent years working to get decent pay to make sure enough nurses want to stay in the job. Any cut would undo all that good work.’
With many nurses coming up for retirement, he added: ‘If we start cutting pay, it will make the job of attracting enough nurses even more difficult.
‘We are opposed to regional pay – it is not necessary as Agenda for Change (AfC) already allows for greater flexibility in pay to recognise local conditions.
‘We are not opposed to discussing a three-year pay deal, but money has to be available to properly reward staff and guard against higher inflation biting into the value of any deal.’
He added: ‘Job insecurity can be avoided if real investment is made in training staff for new roles.
‘Training has been seen as a soft target by trusts struggling to pay off their deficits. But providing money for training is a potentially better way of dealing with future workforce requirements.’
Also, British Medical Association (BMA) consultants’ committee chairman Dr Jonathan Fielden warned: ‘It is absurd to suggest that the NHS in England needs fewer hospital consultants.
‘NHS consultants have driven the massive cuts in waiting times and continue to deliver real improvements in patient care.
‘To suggest that there should be fewer consultants, and of a lower grade, will destroy the gold standard of specialist care that patients rightly deserve.
‘Hospital consultants are highly specialist doctors dealing with a complex and demanding workload, and lead multidisciplinary teams to deliver high quality patient care.
‘The NHS needs more consultants, not less, if it is to sustain lower waiting times and protect patient care in the future. Patients deserve the best possible care, not a dumbed-down service based around a sub-consultant grade.’
He added: ‘The BMA has warned the government of the dangers of introducing a sub-consultant grade because it would be less safe for patients, reduce quality of care and would not be cost-effective.’
He stressed: ‘The government should be investing in the NHS by improving capacity, not reducing specialist skills by cutting back on consultants or by introducing an inferior grade.’
Fielden concluded: ‘If these really are the views of Department of Health advisors, then they are seriously out of touch with the NHS.
‘They seem determined to destroy the ethos and values of the NHS, which the profession and patients cherish so dearly, and are so essential to its survival.’
He warned: ‘The suggestion that consultants should yet again be singled out for a derisory pay award is completely unacceptable. It would be a huge insult to the considerable efforts and commitment of consultants working exceptionally hard for the NHS and risk distancing the very people who will deliver the solutions the NHS so desperately requires.’
