What happens if we can't afford to nurse?

Those of us who work in the NHS have become resigned to having to wait several months from the moment our pay award is due to the moment we start to receive any increase in our pay.

This year is no exception. Despite the start of the financial year having come and gone in April, the Government has invited the NHS Pay Review Body to report its recommendation on the 2022/23 pay round no earlier than this month.

A few more weeks usually pass before the PRB’s report is published and the Government announces the pay award. And, even then, it’s not until July or August that we start to receive the new rate of pay.

As frustrating as these delays are, I hope, for once, the PRB’s report isn’t yet completed. 

Interest rate

Only yesterday the Bank of England announced its fourth consecutive interest rate rise and warned that CPI inflation – currently running at seven per cent – could rise to ten per cent by this autumn.

In contrast, in its evidence to the PRB the Government has asserted its expectation that this year’s pay award for NHS staff will be no higher than two to three per cent.  

If the PRB’s recommendation doesn’t take account of yesterday’s stark and worrying escalation of the cost-of-living crisis, it absolutely must – even if its report is already on the Health and Social Care Secretary’s desk and has to be re-written.

Soaring inflation and the higher rate of National Insurance introduced in April – to help fund the very health and care services that many nursing staff work in – are already taking their toll on household finances. 

Insult to injury

At the same time, the increase in the price of fuel is forcing some nurses to choose between filling up their car or buying groceries, and some NHS trusts have ended free parking for their staff now the COVID pandemic is supposed to be over. It’s adding insult to injury. 

To their credit, many NHS employers are looking creatively at ways to reduce work-related costs for staff, including temporary increases in car mileage allowance payments, but it shouldn’t have to be this way.

Nursing staff deserve fundamentally to be paid fairly for the hard and highly-skilled work they do. They shouldn’t need charitable handouts in order to get by.

Ministers ignore the big picture at their peril. 

They must give nursing staff a meaningful pay rise that no longer leaves them worse off in real terms than they were ten years ago.

And they must wake up to the reality that the persistent staff shortages that jeopardise safe patient care risk becoming disastrous if nursing staff can no longer afford to nurse.

Further information

Find out more about the RCN's Fair Pay for Nursing campaign and how you can get involved.