Abstracts » Health

They're cheap, but not cheerful

Article Abstract:

The National Health Service (NHS) could afford to give nurses a 9% pay rise in the 1999 pay review, according to evidence presented by professional nursing bodies to the NHS Pay Review Body. Nurses are looking for parity with other professions and more money for allowances and leads. NHS managers disagree with the nurses' evidence. The managers' evidence states that, despite additional funding for the NHS under the comprehensive spending review, the pay rise for nurses should be just over 3.5%. They say that the financing of commitments leaves little funding for growth.

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Into battle for equality

Article Abstract:

UK nursing unions are supporting legal actions by nurses trying to enforce a code of equal pay on the basis of providing the same service as male colleagues which should equate to the same pay. Doctors and midwives pay should be comparable, according to Unison, which is the main union for nurses in the UK. As part of Unison's legal action it is bringing to court up to 377 individual examples of pay inequality at a UK hospital trust, which could result in a 5.8 million pounds sterling extra wages bill if the courts find in favour of the nurses.

Analysis, Laws, regulations and rules, Equality before the law, Equal protection, Women, UNISON (London, England)

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Sister act gone wrong

Article Abstract:

A group of ward leaders from the Midlands wrote to the former Health Secretary, Frank Dobson, requesting that the grade and salary salary for a ward sister or ward leader be related to the high level of responsibility assumed by those who fulfill the role. According to the Royal College of Nurses and Charlotte McArdle, a ward sister at a Belfast, Northern Ireland, hospital, who is reluctantly changing to a managerial role to improve her pay, few ward sisters are on higher than G-grade because hospitals cannot afford to pay more.

United Kingdom

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