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NHS nurses in Scotland offered 5.5% pay rise for 2024-25

The Scottish Government has offered nurses and other NHS staff a 5.5% pay rise for 2024-25, it has been announced.

The deal follows weeks of negotiations between the Scottish Government, health trade unions and NHS Employers.

“Fair pay is vital to recruiting and retaining nursing staff”

Colin Poolman

NHS Scotland staff working on Agenda for Change contracts have today been offered a consolidated 5.5% increase backdated to 1 April 2024.

A total of £448m has been pledged to fund the pay awards in the country.

The 5.5% uplift is the same offer that has been put forward by the UK government for NHS nurses and other healthcare staff working in England.

Nurses in Scotland working at the top end of band 5 will see their pay uplift by £2,072, while those working at the top end of band 6 will see their pay rise by £2,535.

Scotland’s health secretary, Neil Gray, said: “Following weeks of constructive engagement with trade union representatives, I am pleased to have agreed an offer, in recognition of the pay review body recommendations, that will ensure Scotland’s nurses and NHS staff have the best pay package in the UK.

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“The unions will now consult their members and I hope it will be accepted.”

Mr Gray thanked Scotland’s “hardworking healthcare staff for their commitment and patience” and said the Scottish Government was “committed” to supporting them through the cost of living crisis.

“I am grateful for the continued efforts around the table and that the trade unions will now put this to their members,” he added.

For over six years, Scotland has held direct pay negotiations with trade unions to come up with pay offers for NHS workers.

These direct negotiations have resulted in Agenda for Change staff receiving some of the highest pay awards in recent years and making Scottish nurses the best paid in the UK.

However, in spite of this, union representatives expressed frustration at ministers, with negotiations for the 2024-25 pay round having opened on 26 July and concluded this week.

The Royal College of Nursing director for Scotland, Colin Poolman, said it had taken “months of pressure” from trade unions to get to this point.

“Nursing staff are rightly frustrated that the Scottish Government has kept them waiting while the cost of living has continued to increase,” he noted.

RCN Scotland’s pay claim, submitted in February, called for a pay offer that “reflects increases in living costs and begins to address the historic erosion of pay”, noted Mr Poolman.

He added that RCN members would ultimately decide if today’s announcement would be “enough”. That process will begin with RCN Scotland Board members looking at the offer in further detail.

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Mr Poolman stated: “Nursing staff are the ever-present, safety critical workforce across the whole of health and care. Our wages do not reflect this and still won’t after today.

“Fair pay is vital to recruiting and retaining nursing staff, to filling the thousands of vacant nurse jobs and giving people the care they deserve.”

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