Mike Hedges AM welcomes Pay Rise offer for NHS staff

Mike Hedges AM welcomes Pay Rise offer for NHS staff

In the Week the National Health Service celebrates its 70th Birthday the Welsh Labour Government have announced a new pay offer for NHS Wales’s staff. The offer matches and in some cases goes beyond the new NHS pay deal for England.
The offer, which will provide a pay increase for staff across the NHS, has been negotiated with employers and unions. It will now need to be approved through a ballot of union members. It means all NHS staff in Wales will have pay parity with their counterparts in England, following the recently announced new pay deal there.
Mike Hedges AM said: “NHS staff in Wales do an amazing job and deliver first class care to residents in Swansea East and across Wales.”
“It is fitting that as we celebrate 70 years of our wonderful NHS we recognise the work NHS staff do with this pay offer.”
“The NHS could not function without so many dedicated staff do. I want to say a huge thanks to them and everybody who has worked in the NHS over the last 70 years.”
“The then Labour Government fought hard to establish the NHS, in the teeth of opposition from the Tories. With our Welsh Labour government NHS Wales is free from Tory privatisation with more nurses employed than ever before and more patients surviving cancer than ever before. The NHS is only safe in Welsh Labours hands.”
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Notes
The deal matches the offer made in England and goes beyond it in some areas which are important to our NHS in Wales.

These include a continuing commitment to look at the annual Living Wage Foundation recommendations so that NHS pay scales remain fair in the future. In addition, recognising the specific commitments to improve the health, wellbeing and attendance of NHS staff in Wales, the offer provides better payments during sickness absence than in England. Trade unions and employers will also work together to support individuals if they face a diagnosis of a terminal illness including support for the TUC “Dying to Work” campaign.

The pay offer includes:
• Going beyond our commitment to the Living Wage Foundation recommendations, with a new rate of £17,460 introduced from 1 April 2018 as the minimum basic pay rate in the NHS and the lowest starting NHS salary increases to £18,005 in 20/21.
• Investing in higher starting salaries for staff in every pay band by reforming the pay system to remove overlapping pay points.
• Guaranteeing fair basic pay awards for the next three years to the staff who are at the top of pay bands;
• Guaranteeing fair basic pay awards and faster progression pay for the next three years to those staff who are not yet on the top of their pay band.