NHS chief calls for ‘proper reward’

HEALTH workers should “get a proper reward” for their work in fighting a coronavirus pandemic, the head of NHS England said on Tuesday (9), increasing pressure on the government over what some call its “reprehensible” pay offer.

In last Wednesday’s (3) budget, the government proposed a one per cent pay rise for workers in the NHS, an offer one nurses union, the Royal College of Nursing, called “pitiful” and has threatened to strike over.

Prime minister Boris Johnson has been accused of failing to honour his promise to look after health workers fighting Covid-19 by proposing a one per cent pay increase for NHS workers with some calling on the government to issue a one-off bonus.

Johnson, who himself was treated in hospital last year when he became severely ill with Covid-19, said last Sunday (7) his government had tried “to give the NHS as much as we possibly can” but would wait to see the conclusion of a pay review. “I agree with you that coming out of the past year and everything that NHS staff have been through, proper recognition for that is entirely right,” Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, told a parliamentary committee.

He also said the long-term plan for the health service had budgeted for a pay increase of 2.1 per cent this year, but he agreed with the government to wait to see the recommendation from an independent review body, due to be made to government in May.

Labour also criticised the government’s pay offer to health workers “reprehensible” last Sunday (7) and pledged to vote against its freeze on income tax thresholds, stepping up criticism of the budget.

The party, which is flagging in opinion polls despite criticism of the prime minister’s handling of the pandemic, called on the government to stand by what it said was an earlier commitment to hand a 2.1 per cent pay increase.