UPDATE: This consultation has now closed.
On 29 July, the Westminster government announced the NHS pay award for nursing staff employed on Agenda for Change (AfC) contracts in England. Ministers accepted the recommendations of the NHS Pay Review Body (PRB) and awarded a 5.5% consolidated pay increase across all bands, effective from 1 April 2024.
The UK government has also accepted the PRB’s recommendations for:
- intermediate pay points to be added for Bands 8 and above
- the UK government to issue the NHS Staff Council with a funded mandate to begin to resolve outstanding concerns within the AfC pay structure and for the Northern Ireland Executive and the Welsh Government to support the issuance of this mandate and to work with the Staff Council, their social partners and with the UK government.
We are now asking you to vote on the pay award. Do you accept or reject the UK government’s pay award? Vote now, if you’re eligible. You have until midday 20 September 2024.
UPDATE: This consultation has now closed.
This is a pay award rather than a pay offer meaning our consultation will not directly affect employers' payment of it. However, your vote is important to help us understand your strength of feeling regarding the award and to assist the RCN’s next steps. Please make sure the details we hold for you are up-to-date.
RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger said: “When it comes to pay in the NHS, all professional groups deserve a clear route to fair pay restoration – starting to make up for a very serious loss of earnings in the last 15 years. Stagnant salaries at a time of spiralling prices forced too many to leave and deterred others from joining.
“We do not begrudge doctors their pay rise. We work together closely, in the interests of our patients. What we ask for is the same fair treatment from government.
“Our members will vote on whether they see this award as enough of a start on our journey. When the full details are released, it must show that the funding is being made available to the NHS and all employers who deliver NHS services.
“Nurses are the ever-present, safety critical workforce across the whole of health and care. Our wages do not reflect that and still won’t after this award. We will be pushing government to show us their plans for improving NHS pay – it is vital to recruit and retain nursing staff, fill tens of thousands of vacant nurse jobs and give people the care they deserve.”
You are eligible to vote if you work in the NHS in England on an AfC contract. You're also eligible if you're employed by a provider organisation funded and commissioned to deliver NHS services and you're employed on AfC-aligned terms and conditions, or dynamic AfC terms and conditions following a transfer of your employment in England.
Check your details are up-to-date to make sure you can vote, if you’re eligible.
Find out more information about the award and voting.
UPDATE: This consultation has now closed.
