Exclusive: Nurses shouldn’t have had lower pay rise than consultants, says Wes Streeting

Nurses should not have been given a smaller pay rise than consultants, the shadow health secretary has said, in an indication of how Labour would approach the NHS pay dispute.

Wes Streeting said ministers had got their priorities “completely wrong” in offering consultants a bigger percentage pay rise – and said he could see why the deal felt like a “slap in the face” to nurses.

Last week, Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, announced a pay offer to consultants that will mean a rise of up to 12.8 per cent (or around £20,000 for the best paid).

The deal agreed with the British Medical Association (BMA), which will now be subject to a ballot of members, was offered in an attempt to bring an end to strikes that have crippled the NHS.

Nurses, with average salaries of £34,000, received a 5 per cent pay rise plus a lump sum of between £1,700 and £3,700.

But consultants, with average earnings of £134,000, have been offered an increase of almost 8 per cent more.

Under the offer, the Government agreed to increase consultants’ overall pay pot by 4.95 per cent, but the amount each consultant receives will differ depending on their seniority.

There have been five different Health Secretaries since Wes Streeting was appointed as their shadow – KARL BLACK/ALAMY.COM

Mr Streeting said he would have prioritised lower-paid staff, saying “it doesn’t strike me as fundamentally fair” to offer so much more to doctors.

“I think the Conservatives have got their priorities completely wrong,” the shadow health secretary said, in the first indication of how Labour would tackle the NHS pay dispute.

In an interview with The Telegraph, he said the variance in the pay offers suggested that the Government “didn’t have a strategy for pay negotiations at the outfit”.

He said the Tories had “staggered from crisis to crisis and from health secretary to health secretary”, with five in post since he became shadow health secretary two years ago.

Mr Streeting questioned whether the recently appointed Health Secretary even knew what pay award had been made to nurses.

Nurses ‘appalled’ by lower pay rise

Last week the Royal College of Nursing raised the prospect of a fresh ballot, and a return to picket lines, with nurses saying they were “appalled” by the “galling” pay rises being offered to consultants.

Since then junior doctors have announced plans for the longest strikes in NHS history, with a three-day walk-out before Christmas followed by six days of strikes in the New Year.

The BMA announced the plan after accusing the Government of failing to “present a credible offer” for a pay rise. The offer under discussion involved extra investment of 3 per cent, on top of an average increase of 8.8 per cent.

On Thursday a board meeting of NHS England heard that NHS strikes have already cost hospitals around £2bn – the cost of around 20,000 nurses.

Official figures show a shortage of around 40,000 nurses in England, with spending on agency nurses now more than £1.3bn a year.

Writing in The Telegraph at the time, Ms Atkins said the award for nurses and other health workers was a “fair outcome” including “two substantial one-off payments” in 2022/23.

Ms Atkins, who has met several unions – but not the Royal College of Nursing – since taking over from Steve Barclay, said she “valued” all healthcare staff and was keen to work “collaboratively” with the nursing union.

Cost of living crisis

Mr Streeting said: “I think when you’ve got a terrible cost of living crisis, and the tax burden under the Conservatives at its highest level in 70 years, I would have hoped that Conservative ministers would understand that consultants are not feeling the same pain in their pockets as nurses, and that would have been reflected in the figures offered to both parts of the workforce.”

“I think what the variance in the offer to consultants and nurses shows is that the Conservatives didn’t have a strategy for pay negotiations at the outset. And they have staggered from crisis to crisis, and from health secretary to health secretary,” he said, adding “this is not a way to run the country.”

Nonetheless, Mr Streeting urged consultants to accept the terms being offered to them.

He said: “I think that consultants should vote to accept the pay offer, because we cannot afford to have more strikes in the NHS.”

The shadow health secretary questioned whether Ms Atkins, who was appointed last month in Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle, was aware of the scale of the differential between the award to nurses and the offer to consultants.

He said: “I wonder if when she signed off on the offer to consultants, whether Victoria Atkins even knew what the percentage offer to nurses was – because there’s been so much change.

“I think that beyond the political shortcomings of the Conservatives, there has been an absolute disaster in terms of competence and continuity,” he said.

Labour ‘playing off’ NHS staff

A source close to Ms Atkins said: “Wes Streeting’s willingness to play one group of NHS staff off against another in pursuit of a headline speaks volumes.

“In October he said he would negotiate with the BMA to give them ‘the pay they deserve’. Now he’s backsliding from that.

“So what is Labour’s position on industrial action? Where for that matter is Labour’s plan to fund any of his recent health and social care pronouncements?

“This Government is working to make the NHS faster, simpler and fairer for patients and staff. All we’re hearing from Labour is yet more inconsistent and opportunistic posturing.”

Mr Streeting repeated previous comments, in saying he was “not in the business of getting involved in shadow negotiations”.

‘Slap in the face’

But he said:” I did say that my priority would be those lower-paid staff in the NHS … I can well understand why, for nurses, it feels like a slap in the face.”

Nurses took strike action throughout last winter along with paramedics and other staff, all of whom were given a 5 per cent pay rise this tax year and a lump sum of at least £1,655.

Although RCN never formally agreed to the offer, the majority of unions did and so the NHS Staff Council accepted the pay rise on behalf of all staff.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Our priority is to negotiate fair and reasonable offers that strike the right balance between fair pay for NHS staff, the needs of our healthcare system and value to the taxpayer.

“Nurses have been given a pay rise of 5 per cent, as well as two one-off awards worth at least £1,891 for full time staff, after unions, including nursing unions, recommended the government’s offer to their members.

“The BMA Consultants Committee has agreed to put an offer to members on pay scale reform – this is not a headline pay rise.”

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