Scottish NHS pay deal for 2024-25 accepted by some unions
Three unions representing nurses and midwives in Scotland have announced that their members have voted to accept the 2024-25 NHS pay offer in the country.
Unison, Unite and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) unveiled their ballot results this week, all revealing that their members had voted in favour of the pay deal.
“What we want to see now is this uplift in our members pockets as soon as possible, as they’ve waited long enough”
Jaki Lambert
Nursing Times understands that the ballot results for the Royal College of Nursing will be announced on Monday afternoon.
All health unions in the Scotland are set to meet early next week to collate their results and inform ministers of the overall response to the pay deal.
The Scottish Government has put forward a 5.5% consolidated pay rise for Agenda for Change staff in the country.
The award, which will be backdated to 1 April 2024, matches the deal that was made in England and recommended by the NHS Pay Review Body.
Unison, Scotland’s largest health union, consulted 40,000 members working for the NHS in Scotland in a ballot that ended today.
It had recommended that its members accept the offer.
The union has now announced that 89% of members who took part in the ballot voted to accept the uplift.
Unison Scotland lead organiser for health, Matt McLaughlin, sad: “Unison represents almost two fifths of NHS workers and has secured the best deal currently possible.
“But acceptance of this offer should not lead to complacency from the Scottish Government.”
Mr McLaughlin warned that ministers “need to be far better at dealing with the annual pay round”.
Scotland’s NHS staff were due a pay rise on 1 April but were not given an offer until last month.
“There’s considerable anger that it’s taken 200 days to get an offer on the table and hard-working staff won’t see a bump in their pay until at least the end of October,” added Mr McLaughlin.
Meanwhile, the RCM has announced that midwives and maternity care assistants (MCAs) working in the Scottish NHS have also voted to accept the pay offer.
The RCM’s consultation, which closed today, resulted in 83% of members who voted opting to accept the offer. Meanwhile, 17% rejected the deal.
The union had made no recommendation on how its members should vote, but it did note that the deal meets the above-inflation ask of the RCM’s pay claim.
RCM director for Scotland, Jaki Lambert, said: “We are your trade union and professional association, and we are led by you and the result of this consultation speaks for itself.
“That said we have told the Scottish Government that such a delay in announcing a pay offer every year has eroded the goodwill and morale of our hardworking midwives and MCAs and they must do better to ensure staff feel valued and are receiving fair pay uplifts on time in the future.”
“Acceptance of this offer should not lead to complacency from the Scottish Government”
Matt McLaughlin
The RCM has called for its members to receive their backdated uplift by the end of October.
Ms Lambert added: “What we want to see now is this uplift in our members pockets as soon as possible, as they’ve waited long enough.
“So, we are calling on the Scottish Government not to delay any further and implement this well-deserved increase sooner rather than later.”
Unite in Scotland also announced its ballot results earlier this week, with 93% of members who took part voting to accept the deal.
The union had recommended that its members accept the offer.
Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said: “Unite’s thousands of members working in NHS Scotland have overwhelmingly backed a good pay offer which has been successfully negotiated by their union.
“Unite will always stand up for better jobs, pay and conditions in the health service because NHS Scotland workers should be rewarded for their outstanding work and professionalism.”
The collective staff side of the Scottish Terms and Conditions Committee is due to meet on Monday 23 September.
At this meeting, all health unions will collate their ballot results and agree on a formal joint response to the Scottish Government’s pay offer.
As the Scottish Government has held direct pay negotiations – rather than using the NHS Pay Review Body – it needs agreement from unions before implementing its offer.
