NHS Employers latest to reject separate nurse pay spine

The organisation said its members would prefer to see reforms that would modernise the whole AfC system instead of singling out nursing as a profession.

“Employers in the NHS do not support anything that would threaten the integrity of the original AfC agreement”

NHS Employers

It comes as part of NHS Employers’ submission to the government’s consultation on the prospect of a separate pay spine for nurses, which closed last week.

The proposal for nurses to step away from AfC was put forward last year by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) as part of pay negotiations with the government, and ministers agreed to explore the idea.

The AfC pay system currently covers all NHS staff, except doctors, dentists and very senior managers.

However, in its submission to the consultation, published this week, the RCN argued that advancements in nursing practice in recent years had meant the profession had outgrown the AfC system.

The union said nursing therefore needed its own pay framework, similar to what the medical profession has.

Since the launch of the government’s consultation, many healthcare organisations and unions have stepped out in opposition to the idea of a separate pay spine for nurses.

NHS Employers is the latest to raise concerns about it, announcing today that its members opposed it.

It comes as the organisation, which acts on behalf of employing organisations in the NHS in England, had consulted with its members on the proposal over the last few weeks.

In a statement released yesterday, NHS Employers said: “There were consistent messages from across the country and an overwhelming consensus that employers in the NHS do not support anything that would threaten the integrity of the original AfC agreement, as this created the unified pay and banding system we have in place.”

NHS Employers said it held a “strong belief” that resources and capacity would be better spent on modernising the pay structure to benefit the whole AfC workforce.

It noted that employers were concerned that any move to pay nursing staff in a different way to their NHS colleagues would threaten the idea of equal pay for work of equal value, which it argued was the foundation of the AfC contract.

“The employers view was that this would impact on the cohesion and focus on team working and multi-disciplinary approach to service delivery,” said the statement.

“Employers considered the risk to morale and consequently patient care to be too great.”

Much like unions representing allied health professionals across the health service, NHS Employers argued that any barriers relating to professional development and career progression were “not felt to be unique to nurses”.

“New roles and responsibilities, coupled with new ways of working, have been developed across the workforce, not just in nursing,” the statement said.

It is understood that the government will now review the submissions to its consultation and use the findings to consider its position on the matter going forwards.