NHS pay supplements slammed by unions

Health service unions have branded new "market forces" pay supplements for selected staff groups in London and the south as "divisive". As details of the scheme were announced last month, unions condemned lack of consultation over the idea.

The new supplement is designed to help the NHS which is struggling to recruit additional nurses and other staff and to meet government targets on staffing. It is to be made available to qualified nurses and professions allied to medicine "working in those parts of the country with the highest cost of living".

It will be separate from and additional to London weighting, which the Department of Health says should not be increased next year. In London the supplement will be worth between £600 and £1,000, while in selected health authorities outside London, including Cambridgeshire and Avon, it will be worth between £400 and £600.

Other parts of the country will be covered by what the government is calling a "recruitment, returners and retention fund", allowing "fast track access to resource special initiatives (not necessarily pay) where there were particular problems".

Although unions want more money for their members, the selective approach has not been well received. The largest health union, UNISON, slammed the new allowance as discriminatory, limited to qualified nurses and professionals.

"The best way to make working in the NHS attractive is to pay all staff a decent basic salary, not to rob one area of the country to pay for top up allowances in another, and shift recruitment and retention difficulties from one place to another".

Unions representing professions allied to medicine (PAMs) took a similar tack, pointing out that many low-paid assistants and other health care staff would not be eligible.