Unions say NHS pay deal claim 'is misleading'

A complex three-year pay offer involving more than 1 million NHS staff ran into trouble as soon as it was announced yesterday, as unions accused the Government of making "misleading" claims.

After more than three years of negotiations, involving 17 staff groups, ministers claimed victory in their battle to secure modernisation of the health service in return for rises worth up to 30 per cent for some staff.

However, the "Agenda for Change" offer is worth much less to many NHS workers, with an across-the-board rise of 3.225 per cent for all staff next April, repeated in 2004 and 2005, worth a total of 10 per cent over three years. Reforms that offer additional money for extra work will add a further 2.5 per cent to basic pay at the end of the three years, and more in subsequent years.

Alan Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, said the reforms would bring radical transformation of the NHS pay system. "In essence it is about paying more to get more so that staff who take on new responsibilities get extra rewards. This is a something for something deal. Pay for modernisation," he said.

That was aimed squarely at the firefighters. The announcement of the NHS offer was rushed out yesterday in advance of the re-opening of formal negotiations today between the employers and the firefighters.

But NHS unions insisted there was a long way to go before a deal was reached and accused the Government of going too far in a press statement issued last night headed "Agreement reached on NHS pay reform".

Paul Marks of the public service union Unison said: "The press statement is misleading. What has happened is that we have negotiated a final set of proposals for a new pay system. It is a very complex package and it affects different people in different ways. There are still a lot of details to be sorted out."

Beverley Malone, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, refused to say yesterday whether she would recommend the offer to the college's 400,000 members. "It has been a very tortuous long process. So far so good. But now there are two key steps – council has to be convinced and the membership have to be convinced." She said the college might call a ballot on the deal.

The package agreed by the Government and the unions involves sweeping away the labyrinthine system of pay and allowances covering the 17 staff groups and replacing them with two pay ladders, one for nurses and similar staff and one for other staff, each with eight pay bands. Staff will in future be able to move up the pay ladder as they take on extra duties.

Alastair Henderson of the NHS Confederation said: "We will get a fair and transparent system for paying NHS staff which we don't have now."