The Government and health unions will begin negotiations on March 7 to settle a dispute over pay.
The Department of Health and Social Care will discuss pay issues with the unions for ambulance workers, physiotherapists, nurses, and midwives.
Parties have vowed not to give updates during the negotiations. It is understood that discussions will focus on pay for both 2022/23 and 2023/24, as well as other issues such as staff banding, work hours, and pay at the lower pay rates.
However, payment for the current financial year will be “non-consolidated,” meaning it will be a one-off payment and not carried over to next year’s pay packet for health workers.
The Government has indicated that it will only provide a maximum of 3.5% uplift in next year’s pay award for NHS staff on the Agenda for Change contract.
The negotiations may involve some flexibility on this figure.
Unison’s head of health, Sara Gorton, who leads the negotiations for the unions, said that unions were entering the talks with “extreme caution” but were glad to be in negotiations rather than preparing for industrial action.
Unison will maintain confidentiality about the discussions until they assess whether progress has been ahead of planned action on March 20.
Unions have agreed to postpone strike action while talks are ongoing, but an ambulance strike set for March 20 is yet to be called off.
The unions directly involved in the talks are Unison, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, GMB, Unite, the Royal College of Midwives, and the Royal College of Nursing.
The negotiations are not with junior doctors, who will still walk out for 72 hours next week.
»Government and health unions begin negotiations to settle dispute over pay«
↯↯↯Read More On The Topic On TDPel Media ↯↯↯