More than 1.4 million NHS workers are to receive a 3.3 per cent pay rise from April, the Government has announced.
The Health Secretary Wes Streeting confirmed he will accept the NHS Pay Review Body headline recommendations for health workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
He said the uplift represented a ‘real terms pay rise’ for NHS staff with it above the Office for Budget Responsibility’s inflation forecast of 2.2 per cent.
It comes after strike action by resident doctors crippled hospitals in the run-up to Christmas.
The medics walked out between December 17 and December 22, as hospitals saw an overwhelming number of flu patients across the country.
Mr Streeting condemned the strikes as ‘self-indulgent, irresponsible and dangerous’ and warned of ‘fatal harm’ to patients.
Resident doctors already received a 28.9 per cent pay rise over the last three years, including an inflation-busting hike last year of 5.4 per cent – the most generous in the public sector.
However union bosses argued that the pay rise was not enough.
One union boss criticised the pay increase for being below-inflation.
UNISON head of health Helga Pile said: ‘Hard-pressed NHS staff will be downright angry at another below-inflation pay award.
More than 1.4 million NHS workers will receive a 3.3% pay rise from April
‘Yet again, they’re expected to keep delivering more while effectively being given less, as pay slides behind living costs. Having an increase on time for once is only small comfort.
‘For thousands at the bottom of the salary scale in England, half their increase has gone on bringing their hourly pay rate up to the legal minimum.
‘Ambitions to make the NHS the “country’s best employer” are doomed to fail if it can’t even compete with high street supermarkets whose staff are on at least the real living wage.
‘Nurses, healthcare assistants, occupational therapists, ambulance staff, porters and all the other essential health staff need proper investment in their pay.
‘Ministers’ plans for the NHS stand or fall on having a stable, motivated workforce to deliver them.
‘That’ll need proper progress in restoring the value wiped from wages over the past decade and fixing problems in how the NHS pay system works.
‘It’s now 18 months since the government promised to set up talks to reform the Agenda for Change pay structure. Yet nothing’s changed and staff are fed up with hearing there will be jam tomorrow.
‘Ministers should have done the right thing when health unions wrote to them last September. Unions wanted the hopeless pay review body process ditched in favour of direct talks to fix pay and structure at the same time.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has agreed a 3.3 per cent for health workers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
‘Before Christmas the government finally started working towards a wider-ranging, longer-term deal.
‘But today there’s been a handbrake turn and a lurch back to the review body process unions have boycotted.
‘Until further talks are successfully concluded, NHS workers are in the dark about who’ll benefit and by how much. For staff to have any confidence that the government is serious about funding further rises* backdated to April, they need far more detail.
‘So far there are only pledges to include improvements for low-paid workers and staff in graduate professional pay bands.
‘For that to mean anything the government must now clear the decks to set up proper talks with serious money on the table. And get on with it fast.’
Yesterday, resident doctors in Scotland also accepted a pay deal which will give them on average a pay hike of almost 10 per cent for the current financial year and 9.4 per cent for 2026/27.
This is a breaking news story. More to follow.