Government accused of ‘deliberate misrepresentation’ in health workers pay dispute

The Government has been accused of “deliberate misrepresentation” over health workers’ pay amid a fresh attack on the coalition’s controversial decision not to accept a recommended 1% wage rise.

The leader of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) said the dispute, which has sparked a series of strikes by NHS workers in England, was “the Government’s own making”.

Chief Executive Cathy Warwick told the RCM’s annual conference in Telford, Shropshire, that she was angry at the way the coalition has treated midwives, who went on strike last month for the first time in the college’s 133-year history.

She challenged the Government over its claims that a 1% award was not affordable, adding. “It is a question of priorities, of how this country wants to spend its money. If there is not enough money for the NHS, that is because the Government has decided to limit its budget, and to spend our money elsewhere.

“In other words it is a political decision rather than an economic one. After all we are constantly being told by this Government that the UK economy is growing faster than other advanced economies. The Government could therefore increase spending on the NHS; it has simply chosen not to just as it has made a conscious decision to hold down pay.

“If there really is no money to pay midwives and other NHS staff a 1% pay rise, how come top NHS managers have been given £166 million in bonuses, and how is it that there is money to give MPs a 10% pay rise?”

She accused the Government of “deliberate misrepresentation” over the structure of NHS pay for midwives and argued that its structure actually saves the NHS money.

“For 30 years successive governments have abided by this covenant on pay. We did not pick this fight; it is entirely of the Government’s making.”

She stressed that the RCM was prepared to accept whatever recommendation the Pay Review Body made, even if it was for no pay rise.

“The Government and NHS employers claim that you are being denied this award in order to save jobs in the NHS. A pay rise they say means job cuts.

“Yet the cost of the rise, £300 million according to the Government, is far less than the £3 billion that the Government wasted on a costly and unnecessary reorganisation of the NHS and less too than the estimated £1.5 billion that NHS staff in England have donated to the NHS via unpaid overtime.”

Another strike will be held by NHS workers in England later this month.

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