The Government has announced a pay rise for public sector workers, including more than a million NHS staff.
Nurses, paramedics and midwives will all have their pay increased, as well senior management staff and people in lower pay bands, such as healthcare assistants, porters, and cleaners.
Some doctors and dentists will also receive pay awards.
However, even those receiving the biggest rises will see their pay increase below inflation, which has risen to 9.4 per cent.
This means a real-terms pay cut for NHS workers, which unions have described as a “kick in the teeth”. Unite is balloting its NHS members over a possible strike.
Here’s how much staff will receive, when they will get it, and how NHS pay bands work.
It has yet to be confirmed when the pay increase will land in NHS workers’ accounts, but it is rumoured to be September.
The pay award will be backdated to April 2022.
NHS staff on the band system will all get an annual pay rise of at least £1,400, backdated to April.
This is in addition to the 3 per cent pay rise they received last year.
The basic pay for newly qualified nurses, paramedics and midwives will increase by 5.5 per cent, from £25,655 last year to £27,055.
The £1,400 rise means the lowest-paid NHS workers, such as porters and cleaners, will see a 9.3 per cent increase in their basic pay this year.
Here’s how nurses’ pay will increase by band:
Here’s how the lower pay bands, for workers such as cleaners and healthcare assistants, will change:
Dentists and doctors within the Doctors and Dentists’ Remuneration Body (DDRB) remit this year will receive a 4.5 per cent pay rise.
This does not include doctors and dentists in multi-year deals, such a junior doctors.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The Government promised rewards for the dedication of the public sector workforce during the pandemic.
“What they have delivered instead, in real terms, is a kick in the teeth. The so-called wage offer amounts to a massive national pay cut. We expected the inevitable betrayal but the scale of it is an affront.”
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Fed-up staff might well now decide to take the matter into their own hands.
“If there is to be a dispute in the NHS, ministers will have no one to blame but themselves.”
A ballot of Unite the union members across the NHS in England and Wales is now under way, making a strike a possibility.
Unite will now consult with its 100,000 health members across the NHS in both England and Wales on whether they accept the pay deal or want to challenge it through industrial action.
The ballot will close on Sunday 11 September.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “This offer is nothing other than a massive national pay cut for NHS staff. After everything they have been through with the Covid pandemic and the service this workforce gives this country day in, day out, this is a kick in the teeth from the Government and an insult to staff and patients alike.
“This ballot is a chance for our members to have their say, and whatever they decide, they will have the full backing of their union, Unite.”
Unite’s national officer for the NHS, Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe, said: “For the Government to demand that even this insulting pay offer is funded through existing NHS money is an appalling, irresponsible move. The health service is already at breaking point and needs urgent investment to stave off collapse but we also need to reward staff properly. There are already 40,000 vacancies across the NHS. This dreadful pay offer will only make it far harder to recruit and retain staff.”
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