London: Government has given almost one million public sector workers inflation busting pay rises but for nurses there is no pay hike at all. Senior doctors, dentists, teachers, judges and police officers are among those who will receive the hike upto 3.1% in 2020/21. But nurses including care workers, junior doctors, hospital porters, cleaners, security etc are shunned in the deal. Government is still telling that here is an alternative pay rise scheme existing for them.
Nurses feel like laid down and kicked after being batterd with Covid 19 during the entire Covid 19 pandemic times. All these workers were caring an awful lot of people who had long term conditions that requires monitoring and evaluation excluding the intense corona patients.Government is still upholding the three year deal signed in 2018 known as “Agenda for Change” which will result an average 4.4% rise in pay for nurses and other health care workers. In reality check the band 5 nurses have received only 1.65% rise in April 2020 when compared to the promised 4.4% per year.
Many nurses have expressed their disappointment by stating this is lack of acknowledgment of their work during the pandemic and is an insulting action from the government side. Government has now made it clear that they are not going to do anything other than clapping hands in front of medias and praising.
When approached for comment, the DoH cited comments made today by Matt Hancock. The health secretary said: ‘These past few months have been an incredibly challenging time for our NHS, and the resolve, professionalism and dedication of staff has been on show throughout.
‘We are able to accept the recommendations of the independent pay review body for dentists and doctors. ‘I am committed to supporting the entire NHS and social care workforce through improved recruitment and retention and delivering 50,000 more nurses and 6,000 more doctors in general practice.’ The DoH added that ‘nurses do a fantastic job, working incredibly hard, day in, day out – and we need to do more to make sure they feel valued and supported’.
They said: ‘Since the start of the AfC deal in 2017/18 we have increased the starting salary for nurses by 12% – to nearly £25,000. Existing nurses will have seen a pay rise of at least 6.5% over this time, with those below the top of their pay band able to move to the top of the pay band more quickly than under the previous pay structure.
The act from the part of government has been devastating so far from the health care aspect and this have broken many nurses hearts who were in the frontline battling with covid. The nurses are telling unanimously that they are not super heroes and they don’t want praising and applause. All they want is a decent pay hike as done by government of Canada and Germany. Many of the frontline workers in NHS have sacrificed their life in the frontline and this move from the government is an insulting behavior. Many petitions have evolved via change.org in this regard. Hopefully, government will reconsider and probably will initiate something decent for the downtrodden medical community.