What does award in England mean for NHS pay in Scotland?

Yesterday (29 July) UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that the UK government has accepted the NHS Pay Review Body recommendation for a 5.5% increase for NHS staff in England. Not a huge surprise perhaps as the move had been trailed in the media for a couple of weeks.

Our members in England will be consulted on whether or not they accept the pay award.

News also broke yesterday that an offer for junior doctors in England had been agreed by doctors’ leaders. Junior doctors will now be asked to accept or reject that offer. 

We’re clear that when it comes to pay in the NHS, all professional groups deserve a clear route to fair pay restoration – making up for a very serious loss of earnings in the last 15 years. Stagnant salaries at a time of spiralling prices forced too many to leave and deterred others from joining. What we ask for is the same fair treatment from governments.

But if you are working in NHS Scotland you may be asking ‘what has all this got to do with me?’ A reasonable question because, as you’re probably aware, the Scottish government, not the UK government, makes pay awards for NHS nursing staff in Scotland. And the Scottish government hasn’t given the NHS Pay Review Body a remit to make a recommendation on pay for Scotland for over six years, preferring direct negotiations with the health trade unions.

The relevance is that a fully-funded pay award for NHS staff in England – that is, basically one for which the government puts up all the money and NHS employers do not have to find money from existing budgets – means new money for the Scottish government for the health service through the Barnett formula. The Scottish government can then decide how it wants to spend that new money. 

That said, the detail of how the award will be funded in England has not been made completely clear yet, so we don’t yet know how much new money, if any, will be coming to Scotland.

So where are we in Scotland on all of this, especially given the pay increase is now more than three months overdue? 

Negotiations with the Scottish government and NHS employers on NHS pay opened last Friday (26 July). I, alongside representatives of the other health trade unions, put forward the case for the joint pay claim submitted in February and made clear that a significant, fair pay rise is desperately needed. We also reminded the Cabinet Secretary that this year’s award was due on 1 April and that any extra delay for nursing staff and colleagues in Scotland is unacceptable. 

We have agreed that negotiations will continue on Thursday 8 August, and we will be lobbying for any new funding for health to be put into a pay increase for NHS Scotland staff. 

Our commitment to you is that when a pay offer comes in Scotland, you’ll be consulted, if you’re eligible. That’s why I am asking all of you to make sure that the details the RCN holds about you are correct. Without the current information about where you work or the correct email address, we cannot keep you fully informed about developments on NHS pay, and you may miss out on opportunities to have your say on any future pay offer.

Please take a minute to log in to MyRCN on the RCN website to make sure all your information is current, including your workplace and employer.

Read about the NHS pay award in England.