Posted 16 May 2023 - 10:01
Posted 16 May 2023 - 10:01
News
Nurses vote to ditch 'unfit for purpose' NHS Pay Review Body
Direct negotiation with government seen as better option than NHS pay process in which nurses’ plight has been ignored
Direct negotiation with government seen as better option than NHS pay process in which nurses’ plight has been ignored
Members of the RCN have called on the college to withdraw from the NHS Pay Review Body (RB) process, which they branded ‘unfit for purpose’.
Following a debate at the RCN’s annual congress in Brighton, 404 members voted in favour of no longer participating in the process, with 98 voting against and 126 abstaining.
The review body was established in 2007 and makes annual recommendations to the government on NHS pay increases for staff on Agenda for Change contracts in England and Northern Ireland based on visits to health service settings, interviews and evidence submitted by unions and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
Health unions refused to submit evidence to review body for 2023-24 pay review process
This year health unions, including the RCN, refused to submit evidence to the RB for the 2023-24 pay review process while the 2022-23 offer was still in dispute.
On the first day of congress (15 May) nurse Geoff Earl from RCN Lothian and Borders branch urged members to go a step further and vote to completely withdraw from the process and instead directly negotiate with the government.
‘We need to address the systemic issues. The pay review body is not fit for purpose. It is time for us to take control of our negotiations and we need to do that directly face-to-face,’ Mr Earl said.
He said the RCN submits ‘reams of evidence’ to the RB every year and ‘it’s just ignored’. He also pointed to higher pay offers for staff in Scotland, where unions have been directly negotiating with the Scottish Government since 2021. This year nurses in Scotland have been offered a 6.5% pay rise, compared with 5% in England.
Two recent recommendations by review body were higher than proposed by government
Supporting the motion, RCN Steward Ged Swinton said: ‘The RB is neither independent nor fair, it is there to put political distance between the politicians and the trade unions. Previously it was goodwill that was holding the NHS together. That has been replaced by guilt.’
There have been two recent recommendations by the RB that were higher than proposed by the government. In 2020 the government said it could only afford 1% and the RB recommended 3%. Then in 2022 the DHSC again said it could only afford 2% and the RB recommended 4.8%.
Not all members spoke in support of the motion, with children’s nurse Mike Travis warning that the RCN would achieve far less ‘standing on your own’.
Mr Travis added: ‘Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The PRB is not the enemy, it’s the Tory party. If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have our banding system.’
Thomas Boyle echoed his warning, telling delegates that they should be working to reform the RB to make its recommendations mandatory, rather than shirking it.
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