Nurses' and midwives' new pay offer unveiled

Thursday 06 December 2018

An overall pay increase of 6.1% and a pledge to review job roles form part of the States’ revised final pay offer to nurses and midwives to resolve the long-running row that they say left them feeling “undervalued” and “demoralised”, it has been revealed.

Union officials say that the offer has not been officially fully confirmed yet because they don’t have “full detail” on how the requested job evaluation scheme will work, but they have nonetheless decided to start balloting members on the proposed pay rise from Monday.

Details of the revised offer come two weeks after States Chief Charlie Parker confirmed that a disputed pay deal for civil servants, teachers and uniformed services will be forced into their wage packets at the end of November, while promising nurses, midwives and manual and energy workers the offer of a revised offer that would see staff within those categories given the same percentage pay rise, rather than targeting higher increases at those on the lowest salaries. 

Before that point, nurses and midwives had taken the decision to “withdraw goodwill” and refuse to work extra time unpaid as their anger over years without pay rises in line with the cost of living, and annoyance that their wages weren’t in step with similar roles in the UK, hit boiling point.

Pictured: Nurses and midwives have been offered an overall rise of 6.1% across 2018 and 2019.

Describing the wait for news of the new offer as “frustrating” amid “daily phone calls, emails and meetings trying to get on paper what we need”, the Jersey Nursing Association yesterday unveiled initial details of what was currently on the table.

The final pay offer to nurses and midwives will be a 3.1% rise from 1 January 2018, and 3% from 2019.

The offer also includes the promise of a review of roles within Health and Community Services using an NHS evaluation tool known as ‘Agenda for Change’.

A ballot will start on Monday 10 December and will close on 7 January. If members accept it, the pay rise will be implemented from February next year. 

If it is rejected, however, negotiations will move to a “critical” stage, the Royal College of Nursing’s Jersey Branch said, and industrial action will be considered.

Meanwhile, members of civil service unions Prospect and Unite the Union, whose unrevised offers were implemented at the end of last month, will be striking between 09:00 and 11:00 on Friday. Members of the unions, who are already working 'to rule', have suggested that this could be the first in a series of serious industrial action measures.