Boris Johnson has been warned he must now offer NHS staff a “significant” pay rise after an “insulting” first offer of 1%.
The PM could announce a 3% rise as soon as Tuesday – despite unions clamouring for a “restorative” award of 12% to 15% in England.
NHS pay has shrunk by that amount in real terms over a decade due to repeated below-inflation agreements under Tory rule.
Inflation is at 2.5% and the Consumer Price Index measure – the average cost of goods – is expected to rise to between 3% and 4% by the end of the year.
Royal College of Nursing acting general secretary Pat Cullen said: “Nursing pay has fallen significantly in the last decade – by 15% in real terms.
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“If the Government is serious about filling the tens of thousands of nurse jobs then a significant pay rise is needed.
"It is... crucial to NHS recovery.
"Low-level awards of a couple of percent would look timid and insult staff when the challenges they face have never been greater.”
The Government has been sitting on the recommendation of the NHS Pay Review Body for weeks.
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The body heard the 1% proposal as well as evidence from unions.
Unite national officer for health Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe said: “If the Pay Review Body is recommending a 3% pay rise, it is a small step forward on the insulting 1% the Government offered in March.
"This recommendation in no way recognises the 19% drop in real earnings that many NHS workers have endured in the last decade, nor the immense sacrifices.
“It doesn’t match the 4% the Scottish Government offered to NHS workers, backdated to December.
“The Government needs to be much more generous than the anticipated PRB recommendation.”
The Government has claimed that only a 1% pay rise is “affordable” despite splashing £37billion on a failing Test and Trace system.
Unison head of health Sara Gorton said: “It’s in Boris Johnson ’s gift to grant staff a fair deal.
"Yet he’s still making them wait.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The Government’s committed to providing NHS staff with a pay uplift, when uplifts in the wider public sector have been paused.”
'Fears of frontline exodus'
- Comment, by Martin Bagot, Daily Mirror Health and Science Editor
Boris Johnson’s 1% NHS pay proposal has caused outrage among workers and the public alike after what our carers have done for the country.
The NHS went in to the pandemic already short staffed and medics have suffered physically and mentally as the NHS was very nearly overwhelmed.
The fear is that without a fair deal there will be a frontline exodus.
While a 15% pay rise from this Government is unlikely, the Tories will not be allowed to forget a deal that leaves NHS “heroes” further out of pocket after inflation.
I have seen first hand how doctors and nurses put themselves through the trauma of stepping back on to wards each day because of a burning desire to help and make a difference.
However that passion for the job does not pay the bills.
Every minister put in front of the TV cameras trots out the same lines about their admiration for the nation’s frontline carers.
Now is this Government’s chance to show whether these are anything other than mealy mouthed words.
