About GMB's NHS Pay Claim

GMB is seeking a consolidated uplift in pay for all Agenda for Change pay bands and points of £1.50 per hour, or RPI, whichever is greater. RPI is the Retail Price Index – one of two measures of inflation produced by the UKs Office for National Statistics (ONS). It measures cost of living increases. Therefore, any pay award below this is considered to be real terms pay cut.

A minimum of £1.50 per hour increase for all staff, would lift the lowest paid up to 95p above the Foundation Living Wage and be a move towards restoring real terms losses in previous years. The Foundation Living Wage, otherwise known as the Real Living Wage, is a calculation based on the cost of living and is voluntarily paid by over 14,000 UK employers. Currently, the lowest paid on Agenda for Change Contracts are just 1p above the National Living Wage. This is the absolute minimum an employer can pay to be in line with Government set minimum rates of pay.

The pay of NHS workers has been devalued since 2010 due to pay freezes, pay caps and below inflation pay awards. As significant uplift in pay is crucial for NHS workers and must sit alongside a commitment and plan to restore the years of pay erosion.

GMB members regularly report to us the damaging and devastating impacts that pay cuts are having on workers and everyone who relies on NHS services. Years of underfunding and real-terms wage cuts are affecting all those who rely on the NHS. According to the latest figures on vacancy rates, there are over 121,000 vacancies in England. Failure to resolve the on-going issues of NHS staff being able to access flexible working options will only exacerbate this.

Pay cuts, rising demand, and the experience of providing essential services during the pandemic have had a profound and negative effect on many NHS workers’ mental health. This is compounded by the high rates of additional hours worked, both paid and unpaid. In a recent survey of GMB members, stress and burnout were stated as being a major area of concern for NHS workers, second only to pay. Staffing levels, and unpaid breaks / additional hours were voted third and fourth.

GMB members consistently raise with us concerns of unsafe staffing levels and the impacts on patient care. GMB Congress 2023 noted that there were staff shortages in every department of the NHS. Dangerously low levels of trained nursing staff on wards. And yet when concerns are raised with local NHS employers, the reply is simply that there are no more staff to cover. GMB has reports of Band 3 Health Care Support Workers being left in charge of wards until suitably qualified staff members arrive. The duty of care to staff and patients is being breached.

Ensuring there are safe staffing levels across the NHS must be a priority for the Government and this will only be achieved by improving the pay and working conditions of staff. Pay is not the only factor that influences recruitment and retention trends, and in turn impacts on patient care, but it is the variable that the Government and employers have the most immediate control over.

Car parking charges have long represented a ‘stealth tax’ on NHS workers, many of whom work in the community and need a car to travel between their patients homes and their workplace, or work at locations that are not easily accessible by public transport, by walking or cycling.

During the pandemic we secured car parking for NHS workers at no cost. Yet, during the worst cost of living crisis in a generation, funding has been removed and NHS trusts have started to re-introduce car parking charges for their employees.

A Freedom of Information Request carried out by GMB found that the total income from staff car parking to NHS trusts in 2022/23 was £46,653,234.00. An increase of £41 million, or 730%, on income generated in 2021/22.

GMB is calling on Government to restore the funding for NHS trusts to enable them to provide parking at no cost for their essential workforce.

The ambulance service is the only ‘blue light’ emergency service that does not provide an earlier retirement age. GMB members (particularly those on the frontline) report that they are increasingly leaving the service before their normal retirement age due to the increased physical and mental strains associated with heavy lifting, the risk of assault, extended shift working, and other formal or informal demands. Current working arrangements mean that Paramedics and other ambulance workers are expected to endure these pressures until they are up to 68, depending on when they joined the service.

The lack of a structured route to early retirement is leading to a premature loss of skills and institutional knowledge (as many workers feel that a career change is the only way to achieve financial security in retirement). The new flexible working and retirement options are proving to be most difficult to access for ambulance workers due to the nature of your working patterns and conditions. Without any credible redeployment options, ambulance service workers are forced into jobs outside of the NHS – such as in GPs and colleges, where the working hours and conditions are more suitable.

There is a profound sense of injustice amongst GMB members employed in ambulance services against the different treatment between blue light services, and against the Government’s decision to raise the normal retirement age twice in ten years.

GMB is calling for an urgent review into the retirement age of ambulance workers. Ambulance workers should be able to retire at the age of 60, in line with other emergency service workers.

Job evaluation has become a major problem across the whole of the NHS and ambulance services and affects GMB members working in all roles and across all Agenda for Change pay bands.

Years of underfunding to the NHS has resulted in chronic staffing shortages and increased workloads for those staff who remain, and job creep has become a real issue.

GMB has actively engaged in the review of the full set of ambulance profiles and the on-going review of nursing and midwifery profiles. GMB is also represented on the NHS Staff Council Job Evaluation Group (JEG) and are actively engaged in that work. However, we have grave concerns about the lack of capacity and resources across JEG.

The huge amount of work that needs to be undertaken to ensure staff are being paid appropriately cannot be understated. Action is needed immediately. Attention and resources to provide physical support and infrastructure to speed up the work of JEG. Failure to do so means that the NHS is in immediate danger of breaching equal pay laws.

NHS pay is worth significantly less than it was in 2010. More than a decade of pay constraints has had a serious and detrimental impact on NHS workers quality of life, and upon your ability to afford necessities.

Whilst central Government has imposed pay constraints in the past, the absence of restorative awards since 2010 is unprecedented. The real wage cuts of the early 1970s were mostly reversed by 1980. Even the public sector wage cuts during the Great Depression of the early 1930s were reversed within a couple of years. But – uniquely in British political history – there has been no policy of restoration since the modern round of pay austerity was imposed.

Deteriorating pay is a contributory factor as to why staff are leaving the NHS. There must be an above inflation increase, that makes progress towards the restoration of real earnings. NHS workers have also lost other terms and conditions that GMB is seeking to restore. These include the removal of the right to retire at 60, unsocial hours enhancements reduced and removed when on sick leave, and subsistence allowances haven’t increased since the introduction of Agenda for Change.

GMB is seeking a commitment to restore lost earnings and conditions and a plan on how this will be achieved.

The Foundation Living Wage, otherwise known as the Real Living Wage, is a calculation based on the cost of living and is voluntarily paid by over 14,000 UK employers. The NHS is not one of the.

In recent years, the lowest paid workers in the NHS have had to be given an uplift payment in advance of the year’s pay settlement, due to delays in the Pay Review Body process and the fact that the Governments own minimum wage rates caught them up. Unions negotiated additional uplift for these workers in the negotiated pay settlement for 2022-24 to try to address and future proof this issue. However currently, the lowest paid on Agenda for Change Contracts are just 1p above the National Living Wage. This is the absolute minimum an employer can pay to be in line with Government set minimum rates of pay.

It is shameful that essential NHS workers such as cleaners, caterers and patient transport service workers are being paid at minimum legal levels. The NHS once prided itself on being a Real Living Wage paying employer but years of erosion of pay has resulted in NHS workers being forced to leave for higher paid jobs elsewhere.

If the NHS truly is to be an employer of choice, we must ensure that the minimum rates of pay are way above the foundation living wage rates and forecasts and measures are put in place to ensure that pay isn’t allowed to fall again.

In 2018, the health unions and employers negotiated a three year pay deal. There were several parts to the pay offer that GMB were not happy with as we believed they would cause a financial detriment to some of our members. This is why GMB rejected the pay offer. However, the pay offer was voted through by all other unions and therefore was implemented. One of the detriments we had concerns about was the changes to unsocial hours enhancements. There were two main concerns:

In the ambulance service, all staff received unsocial hours enhancements in line with Annex 5 Agenda for Change. The 2018 pay offer would close Annex 5 to all new starters in the ambulance service, and any existing ambulance service worker who changed jobs would be forced onto Section 2 Agenda for Change, for their unsocial hours enhancements.

In NHS hospital and community settings, staff receive social hours enhancements in line with Section 2 Agenda for Change. The 2018 pay offer reduced payments for Bands 1-3 and removed entitlements to these enhancements when on sick leave.

The closure of Annex 5 Agenda for Change provisions for unsociable hours payments to new entrants in the ambulance service has been one of the most detrimental conditions of the 2018 pay settlement, which was opposed by GMB members. Alongside the financial impacts of the loss of earnings per hour under Section 2, the enforced transition to Section 2 upon a change of contract has prevented promotions or relocations for many of our members. It has also created a two-tier ambulance workforce.

Under Section 2, fewer hours are classified as unsociable during the working week (Monday to Friday), and the maximum enhancement is reduced from 25 per cent of total basic pay to 30 per cent of time worked. In practice, this change in terms and conditions represents a significant loss in earning potential.

Section 2 applies to staff across the rest of the NHS, excluding the ambulance service staff as referenced above. The 2018 pay settlement, reduced payments for Bands 1-3 and removed the entitlement to enhancements when on sick leave. An effective fine for being ill.

The unpopularity of this provision and the changes introduced in 2018 cannot be overstated. GMB is asking that all changes made under the 2018 pay settlement are reversed.