Letter to Secretary of State for Health and Social Care : NHS pay deal
Members have been raising their concern about the ongoing uncertainty about central funding for the pay ward for 2023/24 for key groups of staff, who provide vital services in their communities.
After discussions with stakeholders, we identified the risk of an inequitable, two-tier system being inadvertently created between staff employed directly by NHS organisations and staff employed by organisations including local authorities, charities, social enterprises, community interest companies providing key community, mental health and social care services, nursing and care homes, primary care organisations and independent health care
providers delivering key community services on Agenda for Change terms.
There are also concerns about whether NHS trusts who employ staff delivering services commissioned by a local authority will be funded to provide the uplift As we understand it, and some primary care organisations who employ staff through the Additional Role Reimbursement Scheme but who are not on Agenda for Change.
Without funding to cover the uplift, non-statutory providers and NHS trusts employing Agenda for Change staff delivering public health contracts, they will struggle to retain staff and sustain critical services.
As a result, the NHS Confederation along with NHS Providers, the Local Government Association, Social Enterprise UK, the Association of Directors of Public Health and the Independent Healthcare Providers Network wrote to the Secretary of State for Social Care asking him to meet to find practical solutions.
