- Conference
- 2024 National Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 5 December 2023
- Decision
- Carried
The NHS Must Become A Real Living Wage Employer.
More and more low paid staff employed by the NHS are earning a wage that is less than the Real Living Wage of £12.00 an hour as defined by the Living Wage Foundation.
In the past it was difficult to get a job in the NHS as a Health Care Assistant, Administrator, Porter or Catering Assistant; just to name a few job roles; as many people would apply for the one role when these became available because the wage rates were very competitive. Now, we have thousands of vacancies in the NHS especially in these lower paid roles. NHS wages have not kept up with those in the private sector. Many staff are leaving the NHS to work for fast food chains, supermarkets, warehouses and call centres, as most of these roles pay the Real Living Wage or above.
Maintaining recruitment and retention rates is becoming a major problem for some job roles in the NHS and many trusts have listed some job roles on their risk registers due to them not being able to recruit and retain staff.
This will become even worst from April 2024 when the National Living Wage is increased to £11.44 an hour and staff on band 2 working in the NHS will be paid only 1p more an hour than this rate.
The Real Living Wage rate is currently £12.00 per hour and in London it is £13.15 per hour.
Sadly, the government don’t feel the need for staff working in the NHS outside the London area to be paid the Real Living Wage rate.
At the moment, staff on band 2 outside London are working below the Real Living Wage rate of £12.00 an hour.
Conference calls on the Health Service Group Executive to:-
1)Ensure that all negotiated pay deals are paid at the Real Living Wage rate or above.
2)Any increase in the Real Living Wage is also implemented in Agenda for Change pay rates for staff working in the NHS so no NHS employee is paid below the Real Living Wage rate.
3)Negotiate with companies providing outsourced services to the NHS with the aim of increasing pay rates so their staff receive at least the Real Living Wage rate or above.