27.02.13
Pay and conditions changes to Agenda for Change contract agreed
The NHS has agreed changes to staff terms and conditions in the Agenda for Change (AfC) contract, with the introduction of locally-set performance related pay, removal of accelerated pay progression, new guidance on workforce re-profiling, and sickness pay at basic-salary level.
The contract changes agreed by the NHS Staff Council come into effect from April 1.
Some staff in the highest pay bands could also be taken out of Agenda for Change entirely and paid a spot salary.
Dean Royles, chief executive of the NHS Employers organisation, said: “The revisions ensure the national pay framework is being responsive to the needs of the service, supporting compassionate patient care and improving job security. The negotiations have been understandably challenging, coming as they do on the back of industrial action, changes to pension schemes and a significant reorganisation of the NHS.
“These changes directly affect nurses, allied health staff, scientists and support staff in the NHS. We now also need to engage in a discussion with doctors' unions about changes to contracts for consultant medical staff and trainee doctors. I hope we can conduct these discussions in the same spirit, with a clear focus on improving access to high quality patient care.”
Unison agreed to the changes earlier this month, and the RCN accepted them on January 23. Unite, however, has pledged to fight the proposals, calling them “divisive”. Its national officer Rachael Maskell said: “It is a very dark day for the NHS, when it chooses to put more pressure on local employers and introduces cumbersome pay schemes when most trusts are struggling to make ends meet. Unite will fight local employers over these changes.”
But Jon Skewes of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said: “Midwives voted in overwhelming numbers in favour of this review of AfC. The RCM believes that this agreement reached today will help to secure UK wide bargaining in the NHS. It will also fend off the threat of local pay and conditions.”
Rehana Azam, GMB national officer for the NHS, said the National NHS Council could “support, retain, improve and maintain” the AfC agreement and added: “If decisions are going to be made to move away from the principles of Agenda for Change, potentially leading to local and regional pay, as this vote on proposals may do, then we all have a duty to redouble our efforts to ensure we have a fit for purpose national NHS agreement.
“The NHS Agenda for Change proposals may appear on the surface to indicate that this will secure long term commitment from NHS Employers to maintain a national agreement.
“In practice the NHS is constantly being exposed to the market by this Government and Section 75 of the Health & Social Care Act and cuts to terms and conditions of NHS Staff are just two examples of many that pose real threats to destroying a National Health Service.”
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