On Thursday, NHS trade unions declared they ‘strongly oppose’ local pay.
NHS trade unions warned that a move to local pay for NHS staff would lead to damaging competition between Trusts for staff, entrench low pay in certain areas and further erode staff morale.
NHS trade unions were invited to submit evidence about local pay in light of the Chancellor’s call in his Autumn statement 2011 for the Pay Review Bodies to consider ‘market facing’ local pay across the public sector.
Calling for the retention of the national pay scales, the staff side evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body states that, while the NHS workforce is complex, the current national system prevents staff and skills shortages, and ensures staff are paid and developed in a transparent, equitable and efficient manner.
The evidence warns that abandoning national pay, following on from pensions negotiations and a two-year pay freeze, would be seen as a further attack on pay, terms and conditions.
It risks lasting damage to staff morale and motivation, and to recruitment and retention.
The report also states that modelling public sector pay on private sector structures would be difficult, costly and inefficient, as well as replicating inequalities found in the private sector.
In addition, it warns that its introduction would have a knock-on impact in the private sector, damaging spending power and slowing down economic recovery.
Chair of the NHS trade union side, Christina McAnea, said: ‘A move to local pay would be damaging to the NHS, harmful to patient care and have a serious impact on the local economy in those areas of the UK already struggling with low pay and high unemployment.
‘This is a shortsighted and potentially disastrous policy and the NHS unions are calling on George Osborne and the government to abandon it.
‘Together with the hugely unpopular Health and Social Care Bill being pushed through by the Coalition this sends out a clear message that the government want to get rid of the National in the NHS.’
Royal College of Nursing Chief Executive & General Secretary, Dr Peter Carter, said: ‘The introduction of local pay will have disastrous implications for local economies and the NHS.
‘The plans would drive down pay in certain areas and will do nothing to strengthen the local economy in these regions.
‘It would also depress household income and decrease spending power, leading to higher unemployment.
‘Agenda for Change, allied to national pay rates, provides a fair, transparent system. It means that in any part of the country, employers know they can recruit staff with the right skills and experience to give patients the care that they need.
‘A move which could see two nurses doing the same job but with a wide disparity in their pay could seriously short-change patients in those areas which do not pay appropriately.
‘We urge the pay review body to reject outright any calls for the introduction of a market-facing remit for NHS pay.’
Jon Skewes, Director of Employment Relations and Development for the Royal College of Midwives, said: ‘Midwives are opposed utterly to the Chancellor’s attempt to drive down further their pay. It will only make worse the existing shortages of such professionals in the NHS in England.’
Unite head of health Rachael Maskell said: ‘George Osborne’s misguided quest for local pay is a slippery slope, purely motivated with reducing public expenditure.
‘It will damage the local economies where these local rates are applied and depress demand. It will delay economic recovery.
‘It will need a new expensive layer of bureaucracy to negotiate all these hundreds of local deals – money that could much better spent on frontline services. It is a huge distraction. Equal pay for equal work should be the watchword.’
Peter Finch, from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, said: ‘The government seem to have forgotten that local pay was a failure in the past.
‘Physiotherapists are highly mobile and work in a UK labour market which anyone with a basic grasp of economics would understand requires a UK pay framework.’
Brian Harris, Director of Employment Relations & Business Services, Society of Chiropodists & Podiatrists, said: ‘Local pay in the NHS would be a disaster for patients and clinicians alike. Pitting NHS against NHS in a drive to cut costs will have an inevitable reduction in patient care.
‘It would see the postcode lottery of care intensify as employers squeeze and reduce the AfC pay scales. Inevitably, less affluent areas will suffer a skills drain and therefore a reduced service to the most vulnerable in our communities.’
The staff side submission to the NHS Pay Review Body states that the NHS should be a model employer, providing high quality pay and reward packages and taking positive action on promoting equality, so supporting the recruitment and retention of a highly motivated workforce.
