The most experienced frontline nurses are around £10,000 worse off in real terms since 2008.
The combination of Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor and Thérèse Coffey as Health Secretary could spell disaster for the NHS and those dedicated staff who work across it.
It comes as nursing staff vote on strike action after a decade of real-terms pay cuts finds the most experienced frontline nurses around £10,000 worse off in real terms since 2008.
The NHS is currently dealing with the largest backlogs in history, record A&E waiting times, and an overworked and underpaid workforce.
Longest serving health secretary.
Mr Hunt was the longest-servicing Health Secretary in history, abolishing the NHS Bursary for student healthcare professions and watched as junior doctors walked out amid concerns over their pay and patient safety.
More recently, in his role as Chair of the Health Select Committee, Mr Hunt has made very public calls for a proper NHS workforce plan, often including proper remuneration for healthcare workers. A move supported by senior leaders across the NHS.
However, since taking up his new appointment, Mr Hunt has already warned that difficult decisions will be needed “across the board”, including across health services.
The Health Secretary’s ABCD plan (ambulances, backlogs, care, doctors and dentists) has already come under fire for failing to address the 47,000 nursing vacancies across the NHS in England.
Dr Coffey has also already made her views very clear on NHS pay and has rejected any notion of an above-inflation pay offer for NHS workers at every opportunity.
At breaking point.
Responding to the appointment of Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor said: “Carrying 132,000 vacancies and with an exhausted workforce grappling the huge weight of patient need, this is Mr Hunt’s moment of truth.
“In recent months he has frequently called on the government to bring forward a now desperately needed, fully funded plan for an NHS workforce fit for the twenty first century, so all eyes will now be on him to now deliver this, something he will know well.”
Before adding, “Health care leaders would urge both Mr Hunt and Mr Argar to be cognisant of the immense challenges also facing the social care sector, which is itself carrying 165,000 vacancies.
