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Union leader tells Lords committee of impact of pay restraint on NHS staff morale

A government requirement forcing the health service to meet the cost of the new national minimum wage from existing pay awards means few NHS workers will receive a pay rise, Unison’s head of health Christina McAnea told a Lords select committee.  
Christina Mcnea

A government requirement forcing the health service to meet the cost of the new national minimum wage from existing pay awards means few NHS workers will receive a pay rise, Unison’s head of health Christina McAnea told a Lords select committee. 


Christina McAnea told the House of Lords that pay freezes were having an impact on staff morale. 

Giving evidence to the House of Lords Committee into the Long-Term Sustainability of the NHS this week, Ms McAnea said the cost of absorbing the new minimum wage meant few health service workers would receive a pay rise.  

Highlighting the impact on morale, Ms McAnea said: ‘It sends a message that health workers are not worth the 1% that the government is giving the rest of the public sector.’  

During an earlier evidence session into the pressures on NHS staff, skills required over the next 20 years and the risk posed by low staff morale, professor Jim Buchan from Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, pointed out that ‘a generation of nurses’ have only worked under a pay freeze.  

He said that while inflation had been low, prices were now beginning to pick up. ‘I think that will add to pressures on hard-pressed staff and the extent to which they can continue to be well-motivated in that circumstance.’

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