UK News 29-11-2002 NHS Pay Reward Snubs Firefighters who: Health Secretary Alan Milburn what: Introduces 16% pay rise for health workers where: House of Commons, LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "More than a million health workers were awarded an inflation-busting pay deal yesterday as a reward for not resisting the government`s modernisation programme," says The Scotsman today. "In a gesture designed to pin down striking firefighters, who have refused to change their working practices, the Department of Health rushed forward a National Health Service pay review." All staff will get a 10% increase in basic pay spread over the next three years and most will benefit from a regrading worth an average 5.9% over five years, resulting from what an approving Guardian calls "the biggest job evaluation exercise in British management history." Health secretary Mr Milburn said that his new measures "will bring the most radical modernisation of the NHS pay system since its foundation in 1948. It is about paying more to get more, so that staff who take on new responsibilities get extra rewards." The Telegraph is not so sure: "Under the new job evaluation scheme, 96,000 NHS staff, about eight per cent of the total, are potential losers," it claims - something a health spokesman confirms: "There are winners and losers. About eight per cent will probably not gain under the new system but there are arrangements to allow them to retrain and develop in the first 12 to 18 months so that they will not end up as losers," the official said. [... more]

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