Politics: Low paid health staff hoping for wage gain

The Government yesterday announced a review of the pay system for all NHS staff from consultants to hospital porters. Colin Brown, Chief Political Correspondent, reports on a hint of optimism among workers at the bottom.

Thousands of low-paid health workers who lost out under the Tories are hoping they will catch up lost ground as a result of a fundamental review of pay within the National Health Service. Many of those on less than pounds 4 an hour are not covered by pay review bodies and their union, Unison, estimates that they have seen their pay slip by 25 per cent compared with other groups since the independent pay review bodies were set up in 1984.

Ministers called for affordable settlements in next year's pay round, but yesterday in its evidence to two of the NHS pay review bodies, the Department of Health announced that the whole system was under review.

This could lead to the existing independent pay review bodies for doctors, dentists, nurses, midwives and groups allied to medicine - about 60 per cent of the 900,000 NHS employees - being replaced by a single system for determining pay in all grades. Low-paid workers, such as porters, not currently covered, could be included for the first time.

GPs, nurses and dentists are being consulted, but they are opposed to the change. The British Medical Association has criticised the Doctors and Dentists' Pay Review Body but is ready to defend its independence. "We have criticised their findings but we have not criticised the concept of an independent body," a BMA source said. "We would be very hostile to abolishing it."

Nurses have expressed worries, and the British Dental Association said: "We would be concerned that if the pay of all NHS healthcare professionals were brought into a single system, the voices of small groups might not be heard."

Unison said that all the grades it represented, including nurses, were united behind a fairer pay system. A spokeswoman said they hoped for "a single pay spine for all groups", and conditions harmonised for all groups.

Ministerial sources were worried that the consultation will raise false hopes of a massive pay rise for the low paid. "We are talking about greater equity but anything that is suggested has got to be affordable," said a source. That could mean slicing the cake differently, without increasing it.