Macmillan boss in plea over NHS wages and cancer care
THE HEAD of a leading cancer charity today joins Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer in challenging Boris Johnson to think again over the proposed one per cent pay rise for NHS workers.
Lynda Thomas, chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Care, also calls for wider reform to ensure sufficient staff to treat the 150,000 people newly diagnosed with cancer since Covid hit the country a year ago.
“This is about more than money,” she writes in an exclusive column for The Yorkshire Post, as she urges the Government not to take NHS workers for granted.
Ms Thomas wants a “longterm, fully funded plan for the workforce with plans for the pay, recognition, training and retention of staff ”.
She adds: “Without an urgent boost to train and recruit more cancer staff, or funding to tackle the challenges ahead, we risk cancer becoming the Forgotten C and the Government will be letting down both today’s patients and those for years to come.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson hinted this week that he will revisit the issue once the independent pay review body makes its position clear. But Sir Keir is making the NHS pay scandal integral to his party’s campaign for May’s local elections. “It’s unjustifiable. It’s insulting. And it’s wrong,” he writes in a Yorkshire Post column on Monday.
LAST WEEK the Department for Health and Social Care proposed a one per cent pay increase for NHS staff, just one day after the Chancellor’s Budget which barely mentioned the NHS.
The issue around the NHS pay increase is yet another worrying sign that the NHS has been taken for granted and the enormous strain that many healthcare professionals are still under has been completely overlooked.
Many of us cannot begin to imagine the unspeakably difficult circumstances NHS staff have continued to work in throughout the pandemic.
Over the past year, our healthcare professionals have faced enormous pressures, some have been redeployed, others have been bought back from retirement, all in an effort to treat the ever-present Covid-19 pandemic as well as trying to keep vital services like cancer care continuing.
We will continue to support our NHS partners across Yorkshire. Almost 800 cancer care professionals in the region are part of the Macmillan family – we cannot let them down by undervaluing their efforts over the last year.
Despite the best efforts of NHS staff, we can’t overlook that Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on cancer care, with tens of thousands of cancer patients facing agonising disruption to diagnosis and treatment, and experiencing increased anxiety about their survival, as a result.
At least 150,000 people have been newly diagnosed with cancer in the UK in the past year, with many having to hear this devastating news for the first time with no-one by their side.
Recent Macmillan analysis also suggests tens of thousands of people across the UK are missing a cancer diagnosis they would otherwise have received, because of the impact of the pandemic.
Last year, Macmillan stepped in to help ease the pressure on our NHS services. We funded 14 new roles in cancer services across
Yorkshire as part of our Coronavirus Emergency Response Fund to ensure the continuation of cancer services at a time when the pandemic was disrupting the care and treatment of so many.
We listened to what was needed, and where it was needed, to ensure people could still expect personalised cancer care and support.
These vital roles included two Macmillan Palliative Care End of Life Co-ordinators at Airedale Hospital. They provided urgently needed additional capacity and specialist expertise to the end of life care team.
These professionals bridged the gap between patients at end of life and their families who were not able to be with them on the ward through the pandemic. They ensured people received dignity at the end of their lives, nothing less than we would all expect for our loved ones.
Enormous challenges lie ahead for cancer care, and a properly resourced and supported NHS workforce will be required to tackle these.
We should be building our workforce up, supporting them through the trauma of the last year and importantly rewarding them for the work they do.
This is about more than money. Salaries reflect one part of a wider approach to recruiting and retaining staff including flexible working, learning and development opportunities and wellbeing support.
I’m concerned that many talented and dedicated professionals will choose to leave the profession as the strain and enormity of the past year catches up with them.
Without an urgent boost to train and recruit more cancer staff, or funding to tackle the challenges ahead, we risk cancer becoming the Forgotten C and the Government will be letting down both today’s patients and those for years to come.
The NHS urgently needs a longterm, fully-funded plan for the workforce with plans for the pay, recognition, training and retention of staff, so they can continue doing their very best for cancer patients for years to come.
The one per cent pay rise proposed by the Department for Health and Social Care is not a done deal and will be a political choice.
At Macmillan we are all too aware of the current economic landscape after experiencing the toughest year in the charity’s history, but we would urge the Government to think carefully about their decision on NHS pay and the effect it could have on an already demoralised and exhausted workforce.
This current situation around NHS pay does no one good and will bring little reassurance to people living with cancer.
At Macmillan, we will keep doing whatever it takes to ensure they do not feel forgotten in this crisis.
Lynda Thomas is chief executive of Macmillan Cancer Support.