‘At breaking point’ due to wages chaos

Fiasco leaves worker £1,000 short

HEALTH workers, including a man paid £1,000 short this month, are at “breaking point”, it was warned yesterday.

NHS staff rallied against a fiasco that saw large numbers of workers including nurses and porters not get their full pay.

At the protest, outside the Royal Victoria Hospital, union members spoke of being shortchanged on a number of occasions over the past 18 months.

The Business Services Organisation, is being blamed for the situation. It is a body within the Health and Social Care system “providing payroll and other business support services to the HSC sector”. Yesterday, it blamed being “required to recalculate employee pension contributions to reflect permanent changes in pay”.

It added: “The highest jump in contributions is 3.2% of pensionable pay, for those whose annual pay has moved over £47,845.99.

“Deductions have been applied to cover pension underpayments for the period April to August 2018. Some members of staff have received refunds for overpayments.

“We would provide reimbursement to any affected staff who require support as authorised by each staff member’s respective employer.” Deegall Mckillen, a worker at the Royal, told the Mirror he is more than £1,000 short this month.

He added: “It’s not just this month. This is no one-off. Over the last 26 months, I’ve been paid significantly short eight times and when I say significantly I mean £500 or more.

“It’s just crazy. It’s now at the point where workers are logging on to see if their pay is actually right for a change. You’re stomach’s churning when you do it.

“But people are at breaking point now.”

PROTEST Workers have had enough