Nursing pay: win for internationally educated staff

"At first, I was content with my salary. It was much better than what I was getting back in the Philippines," says Gino Carlo Acuram, a staff nurse at a London hospital.

That contentment quickly dissipated when he discovered that other internationally educated colleagues, with similar skills and experience, were being employed at a higher increment.

Not all internationally educated nurses were being treated fairly

Gino also learned that peers were moving from the bottom to the top of band 5, yet he wasn’t. He reached out to see how the RCN could help him, and others in a similar situation.

"Not all internationally educated nurses (IENs) were being treated fairly. My colleagues had arrived in the UK from the Philippines just 6 months previously, but I'd been here for much longer. My increment hadn't changed and neither had my salary,” he says.

Gino started working in the UK during COVID-19 in December 2020. At the time, his employer didn’t recognise the previous experience that IENs attained in the countries they moved from. Gino had already worked in the Philippines for 9 years.

His workplace employed experienced nurses at the bottom of band 5, rather than in the middle or at the top of the band, where they should have been if their experience was recognised.

When this system was corrected, trusts set an arbitrary cut-off date for accurate payments to be made. As a result, some internationally educated nurses, like Gino, found themselves at a significant disadvantage in terms of pay and promotion opportunities.

Tackling discrimination

When Gino approached the RCN for advice, he was shocked to discover that a salary increase for his colleagues was now applicable not just in his workplace, but in 28 other trusts in his region. While this was long overdue, it only applied to band 5 nurses who arrived in the UK on or after January 2021.

Gino had missed the cut-off date by just 1 month. And he wasn’t the only person affected. Many nurses who contributed to the pandemic response had not been given the same pay as those who arrived later.

• Read next: Am I in the correct band?  

The RCN lobbied Gino's employer over 4 months. After constructive discussions, they agreed to backdate payments and make banding adjustments for the nursing staff affected, who had begun working there before 2021 and up to April 2023.

RCN London Officer Daniel Beach, who led on this case, says the RCN is committed to rooting out discriminative employment practices and challenging employers where they exist. “This was an unacceptable and discriminatory way to treat nursing staff with the same past experience," Daniel says. "If nursing staff have already worked in the UK and are simply moving trusts, it’s usually easier for the new employer to verify their past experience. It’s more nuanced for IENs, as banding structures vary abroad.”

Now Gino has had his experience appropriately recognised, he’s employed on the top incremental point on band 5. His salary has increased by around £400 a month and he has received backdated pay.

• Read next: RCN helps secure thousands for wrongly paid nurses

The RCN is now lobbying other trusts to ensure this disparity is corrected wherever it exists.  

“Other nurses coming to the trust from the Philippines, or elsewhere, are now having this from the start," Gino says. "They can be remunerated straightaway and promoted to the level they deserve, rather than having to pour time and energy into trying to fight for it.”