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Chancellor provokes nurses’ anger over budget edict on pay restraint @alistairbauer

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Nurses have reacted with shock and anger at chancellor George Osborne’s decision to cap their pay rises at 1% per year until 2020. Presenting his budget last week, Mr Osborne said the government ‘will continue with recent public sector pay awards with a rise of 1% per year for the next four years’. He said: ‘There is a simple trade-off between pay and jobs in many public services. There has already been a period of restraint, but we need to find commensurate savings, this parliament.’ RCN general secretary Peter Carter criticised the decision, which affects NHS pay in England. He said nurses are working harder than ever and ‘already feeling the effect of what will now be a decade of severe pay restraint’. He added: ‘This decision will make the situation worse as nurses realise they are not valued.’ A pay-rise cap would ‘hasten the reluctant exit of many dedicated staff’, said Unison’s Dave Prentis. Nurses expressed anger on social media. One said she wished the

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By Alistair Kleebauer

government realised what nurses do ‘for the whole nation’. A nursing student said ‘this puts me off a nursing career’; another said ‘erosion of salary against a backdrop of inflation is not a good combination for recruitment and retention’. This is the second time Mr Osborne has insisted on public sector pay restraint. Nurses’ pay was frozen in 2010-2012, a move the Treasury said would save £3.3 billion in England.

Mr Osborne’s pay announcements further undermine the independence of the NHS pay review process. Since 1984, unions, health departments and NHS Employers have each submitted evidence to the NHS Pay Review Body. The organisation has not yet received 2016/17 review requests from any UK government. These are usually received in the summer. The Department of Health said there was no plan to change the process.

COMMENT

‘THIS SHOWS HOW LITTLE THE GOVERNMENT VALUES NURSES’ NHS nursing staff have seen real-terms pay cuts of more than 12% since 2010. Many RCN members struggle to make ends meet and work extra agency shifts to meet bills and buy essentials. Four more years of pay restraint with pay rises capped at 1%, while inflation is forecast to rise by 2% a year, will reduce living standards still further. As changes to tax credits also bite, more nurses will suffer financial hardship. Nursing staff in the independent sector face challenges too, because employers, particularly nursing homes, will look to shrink budgets to pay the new national living wage. At the

same time, nurses are working harder than ever, under greater pressure as demand for care is growing. The NHS is struggling to recruit enough nurses. Challenging, stressful working conditions are pushing nurses to the edge. The budget showed how little the government values nurses. Inevitably, some will choose a better work-life balance and pay elsewhere, leading to worse staffing levels and even more reliance on costly recruitment from overseas and agencies. A budget that doesn’t value nurses affects patients too. Josie Irwin is the RCN’s head of employment relations

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Chancellor provokes nurses' anger over budget edict on pay restraint.

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