Pay rise will match inflation?
 The NHS Employers’ Organisation has informed the Pay Review Body that affordable pay settlements are necessary to ensure that the current financial position of the NHS does not worsen and a pay rise of 2.5 per cent is the most that could be supported.
The document given to the Pay Review Body states: “Current evidence shows signs of an economic slowdown in the economy, with average earnings falling, pay settlements remaining stable and inflation forecast to fall towards the end of the year.”
In direct contrast to the view of the health care trades unions, including the Society, the employers’ opinion is that national recruitment and retention premia are not always appropriate, since the most common cause of a national shortage is the lack of trained and experienced staff, rather than the inability to attract them to the NHS. It is also reported that national recruitment and retention premia are only useful where there is widespread competition with non-NHS organisations.
“Employers indicate that in the current climate of challenging recovery plans, a higher than expected and unfunded pay award would lead to expended vacancies and freezing of posts with a subsequent reduction of service and developments. Indeed, in the recent recruitment and retention survey by NHS Employers, 10 per cent of respondents were anticipating redundancies in the next 12 months and they were most likely to be managers (43 per cent) and the wider health care team (30 per cent). A further 25 per cent indicated the potential for redundancies.
This is against a backdrop of 39 per cent of respondents who indicated that they had had recruitment freezes n the last year, of which nursing and midwifery (45 per cent) and AHPs (33 per cent) were two of the main groups.
A pdf of the employers’ evidence can be downloaded here.
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