Barclay pledges pay review body will ‘operate effectively’

Ministers have pledged to examine evidence on how pay is set for more than one million NHS workers, the Health Secretary has announced.

Steve Barclay called for unions and employers to “share their views” as he promised work will be done to ensure “the pay-setting process and the NHS pay review body operate effectively”.

The NHS pay review body sets the pay award for NHS staff on the Agenda for Change contract, which includes all NHS workers apart from doctors, dentists and very senior managers.

The body’s work has been called into question during the wave of strikes that hit the NHS in recent months.

The call for evidence comes as part of a package of additional “non-pay measures” the Government said it would look at after a wave of industrial unrest in the NHS.

Mr Barclay has written to staff on the Agenda for Change contract – including ambulance staff, nurses, porters, healthcare assistants and physiotherapists – to set out some of the measures.

As well as taking views on the way pay is set for these workers, ministers have also pledged to assess how to improve nursing career progression, review safe staffing guidance and explore agency staff spend in the NHS.

“We are working hand in hand with the NHS staff Council to ensure we’re delivering the changes that staff want to see and will benefit them, and patients, the most,” Mr Barclay said.

Commenting on the examination of the pay review process, Unison’s general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Without fundamental change, the Government risks sleepwalking into a disastrous repeat of the shambolic way ministers handled the two most recent pay rounds.

“The pay review body belongs to a different time – it exists in a vacuum and that no longer works.

“A more relevant, modern approach to setting pay in the NHS is long overdue.”

She added: “The pay review body is too rigid, allows the Government to call all the shots and is incapable of delivering wage rises to NHS staff each April.

“It’s time to hit reset, ditch the review body and agree to annual pay talks. That’s the best solution for the NHS, its staff and patients.”