‘Slap In The Face’ NHS Pay Rise Widely Criticised
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- Published: Monday, 08 March 2021 10:43
- Written by Chris Tapper
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A one percent recommended pay rise for NHS workers including dentists, has received widespread condemnation.
The Department of Health and Social Care’s written evidence to the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) for the 2021/22 pay round has put forward a derided 1% pay rise for dentists and NHS employees.
The Daily Mail reported that unions branded the offer from the government a ’callous and an enormous slap in the face’ after a year on the front line of the coronavirus crisis. The Unite trade union said it is considering balloting members on industrial action.
The Mail said “Sir Keir Starmer seized on the announcement to insist that ’Covid heroes’ deserve more, while Tory MPs voiced disquiet.”
The British Dental Association described the 1% pay recommendation as “A body blow to NHS dentistry.”
Responding to the Government’s recommendation, BDA Deputy Chair Peter Crooks said on the BDA website, :
"Ministers seem to have forgotten that NHS dentistry can only survive if it is capable of attracting and retaining talent.
"After a decade of real terms pay cuts, we need all hands to the pumps to address unprecedented access problems and widening inequality.”
Calls for a 12.5% pay uplift from the Royal College of Nursing were rejected. The Mail said “Ministers have pointed out the rest of the public sector will get NOTHING and say the bump is ’all we can afford’ with national debt soaring to £2.8trillion amid Covid.”
Nadine Dorries, the health minister, said that the government could not afford to give NHS staff in England a pay rise of more than 1 per cent. “Of course, we recognise the sacrifice and the commitment and the vocation of nurses and all health workers over the past year,” she told Sky News. “But I think it is important to note that the priority of the government has been about protecting people’s livelihoods, about continuing the furlough scheme, about fighting the pandemic, and we’ve put huge effort into that.”
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