Responding to the NHS Pay Review Body remit letter 2027/28, RCN Executive Director of Legal Services and Member Relations Jo Galbraith-Marten, said:
“The new Prime Minister has an opportunity to dispense with this failed process that has let down nursing staff for a generation. It has achieved nothing but suppress the pay of the country’s most trusted profession and cause a recruitment and retention crisis in the NHS’s largest workforce.
“It is disappointing to see the remit letter before the ongoing structural reform talks have concluded. Those talks require significant investment from the government in order to succeed. Although the remit letter offers a potential route to direct, multi-year negotiations with trade unions on headline pay, the necessary funding must be made available to deliver what nursing staff deserve.
“Another generation of nursing staff cannot be failed by the incoming government retaining an outdated and flawed process. This is a unique opportunity for a fresh start, and for the government to engage with trade unions directly via collective bargaining and end the cycle of real terms pay cuts that have demoralised nursing staff and pushed them out of the profession.”
