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The government rejected calls to reopen pay negotiations with nurses after a fresh deal was offered to NHS consultants.
Nursing Standard. 39, 1, 7-7. doi: 10.7748/ns.39.1.7.s4
Published: 03 January 2024
The RCN said the senior doctors’ offer left nurses pay looking ‘increasingly inadequate’ and called for renewed talks with the government.
Most consultants will get an additional pay rise of up to 12.8% on top of the 6% increase already awarded, meaning some will see their pay go up by 19%. Members of the British Medical Association can vote on the offer until January 2024.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen wrote to health and social care secretary Victoria Atkins to call for renewed talks, claiming the college remains in formal dispute over this year’s pay deal.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen meeting striking nurses during the industrial action
Picture credit: John Houlihan
College members voted to reject the 2023-24 pay deal, which gave nurses a 5% pay rise alongside a series of one-off payments for last year. However, the offer was accepted by a majority on the NHS Staff Council, of which the RCN is a member.
Ms Cullen said in her letter to the secretary of state: ‘It is time for nurses and nursing to be treated with the respect they deserve and for nursing pay to be reformed. ‘Nursing is one of the most diverse and female-dominated professions within the public sector, and the injustice of nursing pay is also a gender issue.
‘The greatest pay inequality in the NHS relates to nursing. This must be addressed as a matter of urgency.’
The RCN said ministers promised during pay negotiations to explore the idea of creating a separate pay spine for nurses but have not treated the issue as urgent. However, consideration of a nurses-only pay spine was a condition of the pay offer the RCN membership rejected. The college is alone among the health unions in wanting to deviate from the Agenda for Change pay structure in this way.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘We continue to work collaboratively, including with the RCN, to deliver a series of agreed reforms but we will not be reopening negotiations on pay. The offer for consultants includes significant reform for a pay scale that has not been modified since 2003.’
