Doctors, nurses and teachers will today find out how much their pay is set to rise amid record levels of inflation and a “staffing exodus”.
With the UK currently battling a cost of living crisis, which has hit millions of workers, there had been speculation pay rise offers will be around five per cent.
However, unions have flagged that this is less than half the current level of RPI inflation.
NHS workers have been waiting months for a pay rise which was due in April.
The public sectors waiting for the pay rise announcement include: school teachers, health workers on the Agenda for Change contract (including nurses), doctors and dentists, police officers, the armed forces, prison officers, NHS very senior managers, the judiciary, senior civil servants, senior military, and police and crime commissioners.
Unison’s head of health Sara Gorton said a five per cent wage rise “won’t go down well with struggling NHS staff”.
“The public understands an above-inflation pay increase is needed or fed-up health workers won’t hang around.
“If the staffing exodus continues, waits for ambulances, operations and other treatments won’t reduce.”
Royal College of Nursing general secretary and chief executive Pat Cullen said the “unfair treament” will “push” more nurses out of the profession, leading to more vacancies.
“With inflation already at 11.7 per cent and set to soar even higher later this year, staff will find yet another real-terms fall in salaries completely unacceptable,” she said.
“Our members in Scotland have an offer on the table of the level reported, and we have come out against it - asking members to reject it and consider industrial action if ministers do not move.”
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said if the government does not increase funding, it “puts NHS leaders in the impossible position of having to choose which services they will take money from in order to fund any pay increase”.
He added: “Based on allocations at the last Spending Review, the NHS has been funded to pay for a settlement of three per cent. Any award over this percentage, without additional funding, will cost the NHS somewhere between £900 million and £1 billion.”
Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said: “Teachers have been badly let down by this government for more than a decade, and only a commitment to a programme of pay restoration for teachers can win the trust, confidence and morale of the profession.”
Additional reporting by PA
