Campaign group urges health workers to reject NHS pay offer

NHS workers are being urged to reject the government’s pay offer for 2022-23 and 2023-24, with a cross-union campaign group stating that health workers may end up with less in their pay packets next year than this year. 

Leaflets sent to NHS workers by the campaign group NHS Workers Say No have urged health workers in England to vote against the 5% pay deal for this year and the backdated offer for 2022-23, which includes a non-consolidated 2% award on top of the 4% that had been recommended by NHS pay review bodies.

Most NHS unions suspended strike action last week and said they would recommend that their members, including nurses, midwives and ambulance workers, accept the NHS pay deal. Junior doctors, who are covered by another pay deal, have agreed to enter separate talks with the government.

However, NHS Workers Say No, a group of health workers and supporters who campaign for fair pay, said the deal does not offer pay restoration, particularly as the non-consolidated pay increase will not be used in pay increase calculations in subsequent years.

The group is seeking a 15% pay rise, to make up for what workers have lost in real terms since 2010.

The leaflet says: “At best [the deal] is keeping up with inflation. At worst it is more real terms pay cuts. It will do little to address the long-term recruitment and retention crisis in the service.

“A 5% offer for 2023-24 means that, after this year’s one-off payment is over and done, we may end up with less in our pay packets next year than this year. The government has already made noises about ‘only being able to afford’ a 1% offer for each of the two years after that.”

The leaflet urges workers to “think what we could achieve if we reject this offer, re-ballot to renew and extend our strike mandates to cover more staff, and step up the action.”

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The group is also encouraging unions to escalate strike action from a “day’s strike here and there” to a “proper programme of rolling strike action with minimal derogations”.

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