NHS pay deal signed off for one million staff

More than a million NHS staff in England are to get a 5% pay rise after health unions backed the deal.

Staff including ambulance workers, nurses, physios and porters will also get a one-off sum of at least £1,655.

The pay deal was signed off at a meeting between the government and 14 health unions representing all NHS staff apart from doctors and dentists.

But the Royal College of Nursing and two other unions are still threatening more strikes.

However, only one - Unite - currently has a strike mandate and that is for local strikes in some ambulance services and a few hospitals.

Unison head of health Sara Gorton, who chairs the joint NHS union group, said: "NHS workers will now want the pay rise they've voted to accept.

"The hope is that the one-off payment and salary increase will be in June's pay packets."

But she added health staff should never had needed to strike on such a scale - nurses, physios and ambulance staff have all taken strike action since December.

"Proper pay talks last autumn could have stopped health workers missing out on money they could ill afford to lose.

"The NHS and patients would also have been spared months of disruption."

Health Steve Barclay said hew was pleased the offer, which was first proposed in March, had been accepted by the unions after members got to vote on it.

"Where some unions may choose to remain in dispute, we hope their members - many of whom voted to accept this offer - will recognise this as a fair outcome that carries the support of their colleagues and decide it is time to bring industrial action to an end.

"We will continue to engage constructively with unions on workforce changes to ensure the NHS is the best place to work for staff, patients and taxpayers."

Despite some of the unions rejecting the offer, it was agreed after a majority backed it due to the support of some of the biggest unions in the NHS, such as Unison, the GMB and those representing physios and midwives.

All staff will now receive the extra pay.

To hold more strikes the RCN needs to carry out another ballot of its members.

Its six-month mandate expired at the end of Monday when its latest walkout ended.

The RCN is expected to start balloting members in the coming weeks, with a result due in June.

Unlike last time, the RCN is holding a national ballot rather than a series of local workplaces ones.

That means it will be harder to get a strike mandate - something dubbed an "all or nothing" approach in one last attempt to get ministers to return to the negotiating table.

The health secretary is also be meeting the British Medical Association on Tuesday to see if the two sides can agree a way forward in the junior doctors' pay dispute.

The BMA wants a 35% increase to make up for 15 years of below-inflation wage increases.

Junior doctors have held two strikes so far. Mr Barclay has described the pay claim as unaffordable.

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