- Conference
- 2006 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 30 December 2005
- Decision
- Carried
A significant number of NHS staff are required to work away from their base for most of their working time (e.g. Blood Transfusion Staff going to rural communities to reach donors, or staff operating mobile breast screening units). Other NHS staff often find that they are required to work in the evenings that results in an overnight stay. Subsistence payments are made to cover the cost of meals and accommodation while they are working in the community or on NHS business.
These allowances were once index linked. However, the last time these allowances were increased was 1994.
Obviously the cost of meals and accommodation has risen considerably in the past 12 years. Staff are now in the position of finding themselves being forced to accept sub-standard accommodation or being out of pocket to pay for meals or decent accommodation.
Conference calls for the NHS Staff council to address these issues as a matter of urgency and consider:
1. raising subsistence allowances to the level they would have reached if year-on-year inflation were taken into account;
2. review the overnight allowances payable for accommodation to ensure that NHS staff can afford reasonable accommodation while working in the community or on NHS business;
3. restore index linking to these allowances.