‘Pay rise, for a junior doctor
CITY MEDIC ADDS THAT OVERWORKED NHS STAFF FEAR WHAT WILL COME AFTER COVID HAS PASSED
A CITY junior doctor has echoed the comments made by shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth over the proposed 1 per cent pay rise for NS workers as the row escalates
Mr Ashworth, MP for Leicester South, last week branded the suggested increase as a “kick in the teeth’”.
He said: “NHS staff have worked so hard in this crisis. They have put their lives on the line, many of them have died, and for (Chancellor) Rishi Sunak to offer them what could turn out to be a pay cut is an absolute disgrace.”
Now, as the government continues to defend its controversial recommendation, talk of industrial action has been sparked, and unions have warned it could see nurses leave the profession in their droves following 12 months on the front line of the Covid pandemic.
Mr Ashworth said at the weekend that he believes nurses, though upset, do not want to join picket lines.
“I know nurses, they don’t want to go on strike,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
“I will always support the rights of staff to take industrial action but we don’t want to get to that place, so the government has to drop this 1 per cent pay rise, which is a pay cut.”
Leicester junior doctor Dr Suga Roy echoed Mr Ashworth’s comments, and said frontline staff “fear” the upcoming months.
She said: “We’ve spent a whole year surrounded by so many morbid cases all at once, and at the moment we are dealing with a workforce of exhausted health care professionals.
“For example, I am in general practice at the moment and we know that we have to anticipate and prepare for the months ahead dealing with recovery of both the workforce and patients, and also catching up with the backlog of things like elective surgical procedures and mental health, all of which have been impacted over the past year.
“It’s more about this fear of upcoming months and what we have to anticipate for, and to hear about the one per cent we don’t feel reassured that a) our workforce can recover and b) that we can provide good health care sustainably.”
Talking about how colleagues felt and how the proposed rise had been received, Dr Roy added: “The first thing is to put it into context and ask what does this actually mean?
“Based on basic pay for a secondyear junior doctor, like me, on current contracts it would basically mean 89p a day extra. For doctors one grade above me, that additional pay means £1.06.
“We have to ask ourselves, does this reflect the very fact that NHS workers have been risking their own lives on top of the 30 per cent cut that we have faced over the last decade?
“Because actually, if we remind ourselves of that, then before we even talk about a pay rise we’re talking about paying back.”
An Opinium poll carried out on Friday and Saturday suggested as much as 72 per cent of the population think the wage recommendation is too low, including 58 per cent of Tory voters.
However, the government has tried to give NHS staff “as much as we possibly can” after recommending a 1 per cent pay rise, the Prime Minister said.
Boris Johnson defended the decision during a visit to a vaccination centre in Brent, north London.
The Prime Minister told broadcasters: “I’m massively grateful to all NHS staff and indeed to social care
workers who have been heroic throughout the pandemic.
“What we have done is try to give them as much as we can at the present time.
“The independent pay review body will obviously look at what we’ve proposed and come back.
“Don’t forget that there has been a public sector pay freeze, we’re in pretty tough times.”
Royal College of Nursing (RCN) chief Dame Donna Kinnair accused Mr Johnson of “failing to understand the situation” and said his pay defence would lead to nurses leaving the profession.
“When there are already tens of thousands of unfilled nurse jobs in the NHS, he’s pushing more to the door this weekend,” said the union’s general secretary.
Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said the rise recommended by ministers to independent pay bodies amounts to a “real-terms pay cut” as it will be outflanked by expected rises in inflation over the coming months.
A newly qualified nurse earning a £24,907 salary would face a realterms cut to the tune of £174 if the rise goes ahead, according to Labour.
Labour’s Ms Nandy told Sky News: “We think nurses deserve a pay rise this year and that should never have been something that was up for negotiation – this is a government that has completely got its priorities wrong.
“If they can give a special adviser (Dominic Cummings) who broke the rules a 50 per cent pay rise, but then offer our nurses a realterms pay cut, that is a government that just has not understood who it is that is getting us through this crisis.”