Inflation robs nurses of a year's worth of pay, analysis shows

Nursing staff have suffered a cumulative real-terms pay loss of £37,000 since 2010, TUC analysis shows

Nurses have lost a year’s worth of pay because their wages have not kept up with inflation, research suggests.

A Trades Union Congress (TUC) analysis, published today, found that nursing staff have suffered a cumulative real-terms pay loss of £37,000 since 2010. This is the equivalent of 13 months’ salary, the union said.

Meanwhile, midwives have seen a loss of £48,000 since 2010 and maternity and care assistants a loss of £30,000.

Industrial unrest in NHS will persist if ministers keep refusing to enter pay talks, TUC warns

The TUC estimates that public sector workers are earning £200 a month less in real terms than in 2010.

It warned that industrial unrest in the NHS would persist if the government continued to refuse to enter pay talks, adding that ministers’ decision to hold down public sector pay was fuelling a recruitment and retention crisis in the NHS.

Real-terms pay loss by NHS band

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Nurses and other healthcare workers are embroiled in a bitter dispute with the government over poor pay, with tens of thousands of nursing staff taking part in strike action for the first time in NHS history.

The TUC accused prime minister Rishi Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt of being ‘roadblocks’ to resolving the dispute and repeated its calls for the pair to open up ‘genuine’ negotiations on pay.

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TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: ‘Things can’t carry on like this. After a decade of pay suppression, public servants simply cannot afford another real-terms wage hit. Their living standards have been decimated.

Staff will leave for better-paid less stressful jobs without proper investment in NHS, says Unison

‘Instead of ignoring the problem they created, the government must kick-start genuine pay negotiations.’

Meanwhile, Unison warned that without proper investment in the NHS workforce people would continue to leave for better-paid and less stressful jobs.

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General secretary Christina McAnea said: ‘Ministers clearly don't value health workers as much as they should. It’s time the chancellor came out of hiding and found the money to pay staff properly.’

The Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care have been contacted for comment.

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