Jdsk wrote:There are two other current issues which I don't think have been mentioned:
1 There is an enormous backlog of elective work from the outbreak. The current spending allocation means that this cannot be addressed adequately in the foreseeable future
2 There is an imminent structural reorganisation of the NHS in England.
Jonathan
For 1 there's an imminent restructuring for diagnostics across England with a huge investment in additional equipment and the staff needed to run these services. This is focused on clearing the elective backlog. Google for the Richard's report on diagnostics if you want to know more about it.
You should see changes within the next year or two with Community Diagnostic Hubs popping up with a full range of diagnostics, starting with imaging (likely to be 2 CT scanners and 1 MR per CDH). Across the North West of England there could be around 22 of these. There should be funding for staff too, but there's a huge challenge in recruiting radiographers, radiologists and even medical physicists (my field - no physicists = no imaging so even if you've no idea what we do, we're essential). Huge numbers of staff will need to be trained, but for most professions this takes years (e.g. in medical physics minimum 3 years after graduating with a physics degree for basic competence) so these staff won't be trained before the CDHs are needed.
Makes little difference how much of a pay rise is offered if the staff with the necessary skills and experience simply aren't available.
FWIW, as an NHS employee, I wouldn't complain if I did get a significant pay rise, but the issues with staffing across the NHS go far beyond pay. I'm sure many, many workers would be much happier with the same pay, but proper staffing levels across all services.
For 2 - yes, yet another restructure
And responding to an earlier point around annual pay rises - the recent pay deal under AfC means that on higher bands staff go several years between increments. Annual increments used to be normal for all bands until you reached the top of a band, but these are no more for many. I'll be on my current band for 5 years before I get any real pay rise.