Monday, March 22, 2021
Time to pay health and care workers what they're worth
He may have stood on the doorstep of Number Ten applauding the overworked, underpaid, much put upon health and care workers who have guided us through this pandemic, often at huge personal cost to themselves, and who even intervened to save his life, but Boris Johnson does not appear to be extending his gratitude to a decent pay rise for the same cohort of workers anytime soon.
Health workers in England are being offered a paltry 1% extra in their pay packets, while those working in social care continue to struggle on the bare minimum. This injustice of this situation is underlined by revelations in the Mirror a few days ago, that 300,000 staff worked unpaid overtime during the Covid-19 pandemic.
That is almost 13,000 more than the figure for the same groups in in 2019, and it suggests more than a million hours of unpaid overtime were worked during the pandemic. The paper adds that across the whole NHS workforce, some 55.2% of staff say they worked unpaid overtime last year - which is a slight decline from 55.9% the year before.
It is hardly surprising that retention levels for nurses and other staff are so low. The stress and strain of their roles must be tremendous, and it is time they were remunerated accordingly.
Health workers in England are being offered a paltry 1% extra in their pay packets, while those working in social care continue to struggle on the bare minimum. This injustice of this situation is underlined by revelations in the Mirror a few days ago, that 300,000 staff worked unpaid overtime during the Covid-19 pandemic.
That is almost 13,000 more than the figure for the same groups in in 2019, and it suggests more than a million hours of unpaid overtime were worked during the pandemic. The paper adds that across the whole NHS workforce, some 55.2% of staff say they worked unpaid overtime last year - which is a slight decline from 55.9% the year before.
It is hardly surprising that retention levels for nurses and other staff are so low. The stress and strain of their roles must be tremendous, and it is time they were remunerated accordingly.
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So much for independent pay review bodies in England. One trusts that Drakeford and Gething are true to their word in not interfering with the deliberations of the nurses' pay review in Wales.
Incidentally, how much trust can the electors of Wales put in the pledge by Andrew RT Davies to recruit 3,000 more nurses in Wales when his boss in Westminster is doing his best to drive out nurses from the NHS?
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Incidentally, how much trust can the electors of Wales put in the pledge by Andrew RT Davies to recruit 3,000 more nurses in Wales when his boss in Westminster is doing his best to drive out nurses from the NHS?
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