The health secretary has asked the doctors’ pay review body to deliver its recommendation ‘at the earliest point’ to help speed up pay awards for the next financial year.
In a letter to the Review Body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) yesterday, Wes Streeting said the Government’s ‘intention is to announce pay awards as close to the start of the pay year of 1 April as possible for 2025 to 2026’.
This year, the DDRB’s recommendation for a 6% GP pay rise was published at the end of July, with payments backdated to April.
To support an earlier DDRB report, Mr Streeting committed to publishing his department’s written evidence for 2025/26 ‘as soon as possible’ after the October Spending Review.
This evidence will cover the ‘recruitment retention context alongside pay and earnings data’ as well as the ‘expected position’ after this year’s pay award and the department’s available funding.
On DDRB timelines, the health secretary said: ‘We know that public sector workers delivering our vital public services deserve timely pay awards, so, as the Chancellor said in her July Statement, the government’s intention is to announce pay awards as close to the start of the pay year of 1 April as possible for 2025 to 2026.
‘It is unfortunate that, given the knock-on effects from the previous government’s delays to the 2024 to 2025 round, it is unlikely that workforces will receive pay increases by April, but by bringing the pay round forwards this year, we can more fully reset the timeline in 2026 to 2027.’
He added: ‘I recognise that changing the timeline from recent years will present challenges for DDRB, but I am sure you also share the government’s belief in the importance of returning to more timely annual pay processes, so I hope you will understand the necessity of doing so.’
This year, the NHS England has implemented the 6% pay rise recommendation for all GPs and practice staff by uplifting the global sum by 7.4%.
The DDRB made a recommendation on GP partner pay for the first time in five years, noting the ‘significant’ cost increases they had faced over the last two years.
I don’t know who started this, but it is an ask in the Welsh hospital staffs (medical and nursing) negotiations this year too, and I think it is extremely sensible. It might also move strikes from the wintertime when NHS is busy to the summertime, but the cash-flow benefit to all staff of getting this sorted, and the paperwork/admin savings to NHS of potentially doing it BEFORE the first pay-check of the new pay year is issued, would be worth that offset !
My god something sensible for a change! Well done Wes! I’m starting to get the impression that he actually listens…
Only if they match the consultant, juniors, judges and train drivers pay rise!
Still haven’t seen this year’s pay rise. CPD not paid either.
Seems like a good idea on the face of it and might be a way of trying to achieve a stable relationship with the profession but could this be a tactic to expedite agreement before data from previous years’ earnings is available? (although this is already the case now).
Karl, I think if you look at 2024-2025 DDRB report they acknowledged they could not take in to account 2022-2023 data where they “knew” that partner income took a big drop, ie- the dropoff of all Covid related funding and the steep rise in inflation.
So, even if they just take that in to account and haven’t yet got 2023-2024 data then playing by their own rules they SHOULD recommend a proper uplift…
Whether or not that plays out is another issue