Andrew Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of public sector pay restraint on (a) staff recruitment, (b) staff retention and (c) expenditure on agency staff in the NHS.

Alistair Burt

Over the last five years, neither the NHS Pay Review Body (NHSPRB) nor the Doctors and Dentist Pay Review Body (DDRB) which make pay recommendations to government for employed non-medical and medical National Health Service staff, have identified any significant recruitment and retention issues because of pay restraint or expenditure on agency staff. In fact there are 8,500 more full time equivalent doctors and 6,800 more nurses since 2010.

In addition to consolidated and non-consolidated pay increases, over the last five years, just under half of all employed NHS staff also received incremental pay at an average of over 3% each year.

The Government has said that it will fund public sector workforces for a pay award of 1% for four years from 2016/17. The NHSPRB and DDRB will make recommendations to Government for 2016/17 and in making their recommendations will take into account the funding available to the NHS and expenditure on the workforce, including temporary staffing through agencies. They will also consider how their recommendations might affect the retention, recruitment and motivation of all their remit group.

It is recognised that the policy of pay restraint is challenging and difficult for NHS staff, however at a time of necessary decisions, the Government’s pay policy will help to ensure the NHS workforce is affordable and protect jobs.