RCM calls for fairer pay for NHS staff

The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) has called on the NHS Pay Review Body to break the government’s policy of public sector pay restraint.

The comment comes as MPs are set to debate pay restraint in the NHS, following the petition ’Scrap the NHG Pay Cap’.

Commenting on the move, Jon Skewes director for Policy, Employment Relations and Communications at the RCM said; “The government has got to show that it values NHS staff, who are working harder and harder, with what seems less and less. As in the past the government are pressuring the NHS Pay review Body to keep pay awards to a maximum of one per cent for NHS staff. They need to stop this pressure and genuinely allow the pay body the freedom to recommend pay awards.

“We are currently 3,500 midwives short in England alone and maternity units are struggling to meet the demands of the service. RCM’s annual survey with Heads of Midwifery (HOMs) shows that they are frequently redeploying staff to other areas; using bank and agency staff; withdrawing services and closing the unit. Every day we hear from our members that they are struggling with understaffing and subsequently are working harder and longer hours for less and less pay and this simply cannot continue.”

“The past six years of pay restraint in the NHS have seen midwives and maternity support workers salaries drop dramatically. The value of the average midwives salary has dropped by £6,000 and if the governments policy of pay restraint continues until 2020 that will increase to £9,000.

Skewed also added that it was reprehensible that ‘midwives and other public sector workers to continue to work more as their salaries steadily decreases’.

He added: “The government cannot continue to expect maternity services to run on the sheer goodwill of midwives alone and that is why the RCM we will continue to campaign break with the government’s policy of public sector pay restraint.”