Tory minister says 1% pay offer for NHS staff was 'pleasant surprise'

Nadine Dorries says nurses would ideally get more but notes freeze elsewhere in public sector

Nurses would ideally get a bigger pay rise than the 1% that the government has recommended, the junior health minister Nadine Dorries has said, as she suggested it could “move” on the issue.

The Royal College of Nursing has denounced the proposed pay increase for NHS staff as “pitiful” and doctors’ groups have accused the government of a dereliction of duty after Boris Johnson’s effusive praise for their efforts during the pandemic.

Dorries, a former nurse, told BBC Breakfast on Friday: “I was actually surprised because I knew that we’d frozen public sector pay, that no one in the public sector was receiving a pay rise, so I was pleasantly surprised that we were making an offer.”

She said the offer was the most the government thought it could afford and put forward to the NHS pay review body. She told Sky News: “That will be discussed, then we will wait for feedback from unions and other health sector stakeholders and see where we move to on this, but the 1% is what the government can afford.”

She noted that nurses were on an average salary of £34,000 at a time when many people had lost their jobs, and she predicted that record numbers would apply to enter the profession this year.

“Everybody in an ideal world would love to see nurses paid far more … but we are coming out of a pandemic where we have seen huge borrowing and costs to the government,” she said.

Dorries, whose ministerial brief covers patient safety, suicide prevention and mental health, also said there would be no cuts to NHS budgets.

Budget documents revealed there is a planned cut of £30bn in day-to-day spending at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) from April this year, from £199.2bn to £169.1bn.

“That £30bn, I believe, was a reduction on the pandemic spending – there are actually real-time increases going into the NHS budget year on year. That figure, I’m afraid, is completely wrong – that’s not on our annual funding of the NHS, that was on our pandemic budget, which is completely separate,” Dorries said.

The pay review body will decide in May how much of a salary uplift the vast majority of NHS staff across the UK should get in 2021-22. The proposed 1% pay rise would apply to all NHS staff apart from junior doctors, GPs and dentists.

The veteran Tory MP Sir Roger Gales said more was needed.

“We are facing exceptional circumstances. Yes, I know over a period of three years nurses have had a considerable pay increase, but that <1%> is not what I think the public wants in terms of recognition of a wholly exceptional situation,” he said on Friday. “I do think there has to be a recognition, whether there is a one-off payment – preferably tax-free and a big one – or a pay settlement which obviously would be ongoing.”On Thursday, Dame Donna Kinnair, the chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said: “A pay award as poor as this would amount to only an extra £3.50 per week take-home pay for an experienced nurse. Nobody would think that is fair in the middle of a pandemic. Nursing staff would feel they are being punished and made to pay for the cost of the pandemic. Nursing deserves a 12.5% increase.”

Gale said he had met the south-east branch of the RCN 10 days ago and had written a private letter to the chancellor of the exchequer.

The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, denounced the government’s recommendation of a 1% pay rise for nurses and other health workers.

He said: “This is insulting to NHS staff on the frontline – they have been on the frontline throughout this pandemic. It is not good enough just to clap them: this is a real insult. They need to be properly recognised and properly rewarded.

“The prime minister tries to take credit for the vaccine rollout whilst cutting the pay of those who are actually delivering it, and it is insulting.”

Starmer said a pay cut was “completely the wrong thing in this situation” as he called for NHS workers to be given a pay rise above inflation. He said: “They need a fair rise in pay, above inflation, to be properly recognised and rewarded for what they have put in in the last 12 months.”

source: Ben Quinn

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