Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

The Health Secretary Andrew Lansley backs lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas

Is this government hoping to cause strike action with such an outlandish scheme as the above as that is the only outcome I can see if they go ahead with this stupid idea of a new North/ South divide.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/20...ed-public.html

already got a thread mate ;)



edit ,just noticed it has been locked

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Probably be closed or merged but this is specific about Andrew Lansley backing the wages reform.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

should be ok as long as AF doesn't start spouting his rubbish in it .


Personally i think it will create all sorts of problems ,as you say it will reinforce the north south divide that's already there .It will lead to staff shortages in northern hospitals .It's unfair to pay different rates for the same job and don't the london workers already get a "london allowance".If the government want the poorer half of the country to get better off then this is the wrong way to do so

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

It is called London Weighting this will cause staff to go to other NHS Trusts offering better wages which will enable those Triusts to cherry pick the best staff.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Leaving northeners with poorer paid staff and poorer health care and as per the overall policy this would also apply to teachers and police

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Sorry to gate-crash your love-in gents, but you seem to have rather missed the point of regional differences in wages. ;)

People in the southeast do not have 'better wages' than people in the northeast, or northwest. They have wages that reflect the higher - in some cases absurdly higher - llving costs associated with London and its hinterland.*

At present an NHS worker earning the same money in Newcastle as someone doing an identical job in Watford is, in real terms, significantly better off. I see no reason why, as a taxpayer, I should pay to maintain out-moded, left-wing ideas about uniform nationwide terms and conditions which run entirely counter to economic reality.

* I have lived and worked in northwest and southeast England and in central Scotland and I can assure you in terms of what it costs to live in each of those areas, the southeast would bring tears to your eyes.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

All that will happen is the wage to reflect the lower cost of living in the north will be set lower restricting growth in the north and as i already said it will exacerbate the already existing north south divide .How about the wages stay the same in the north and increase in the south .The economy needs people to have some disposable income and taking that away from northerners is the wrong thing to do.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

I don't think Andrew Lansley's thoughts have anything to do with cost-of-living. I think its to do with keeping posh people in the south to spend all of their disposable income there. And saving money in the NHS on wages/pensions payments etc

Chris: Don't you think a Paramedic/Nurse in Newcastle deserves the same pay as somewhere like Hertfordshire? (I specifically didn't mention London) They do the same job...deal with very ill/dying people?

Perhaps what would work better in your "if its cheaper to live you should get paid less" thought, would be to add a broader "southern weighting" to the south of england on top of the standard pay bands.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

But it's not just about pay, is it? It's also about how much it costs to live somewhere.

If all trades/professions are paid the same, no matter where they are geographically, doesn't that disadvantage those living in the South-East (not just London, but Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, et al), as they will have less disposable income after they have paid their higher costs (such as housing, transport, etc)?

For instance, I took a fairly large cut in salary when I moved up North, but I balanced that out with a lower cost of living, so it evened out in the end - there was no way I could get the same salary in Leeds that I could in the South-East/London.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Maybe the government should examine why a tin of beans ,a litre of fuel or houses costs more down south for no apparent reason other than the location

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

I think the question is deliberately two-dimensional and substitutes an honest appraisal of hard economic fact with an appeal to emotion.

Medical professionals don't have a monopoly on difficult jobs and I'm afraid I don't think they have a right to an exemption from the same basic rules of a market economy that govern the rest of us. The current situation is an anachronism, an overhang from the days when over-mighty trade unions used socialist dogma to override basic economics. National pay bargaining is as daft as State-controlled bread prices.

---------- Post added at 21:49 ---------- Previous post was at 21:41 ----------

I think the more pressing problem is that there should be any region of the UK where State employment levels are high enough that State pay levels would 'restrict growth'.

The fact is, employers in these areas already face wage pressures because the State is artificially inflating levels thanks to national pay. The idea that wages in the south should be lifted, rather than lowered in the north, is insane. Where do you propose we find the money to pay for that?

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

I know it's insane ,but what about the people who have bought houses and built a lifestyle about their chosen profession based on current income levels ? Are they supposed to accept it and try to sell up or abandon what they have worked for because the government decides they aren't worth as much tomorrow as they where yesterday ?.
Should this proposal actually happen it will be a life changing decision for many people .Of course all this depends on how much they decide to drop the northern wage but going by your earlier statement i would expect it to be quite a lot

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Seeing as nobody is being threatened with a cash terms pay cut, I don't think lifestyle or mortgage payments should be a concern. Differentials will open up over time. Anyone who has built a lifestyle on the size of pay increases they expect to get next year or the year after is living dangerously regardless of whether regional pay is introduced.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

All it means is that they will not give pay rises to the North as we can fend for ourselves by other means such as sharing a bed under a few coats.

In other words we are going to get done over by a government who believes civilisation only extends as far as Watford.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

The answer is because people get paid more so this leads to regional inflation, which in turn leads to pressure to increase wages.

A classic chichen and egg problem.

If the government thinks they are paying too much for services in 'the north' they should freeze their wages and over time inflation will do the rest. I don't think it is fair to simply cut wages.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

So what your saying is that the government will introduce the different scales by not increasing the wage yearly in certain areas untill the required difference is met ?.If that's the case i wouldn't trust the government with doing that correctly .It would be far too easy to massage cost of living figures for each area or simply making the usual balls up and just getting it wrong ,leaving people in a position where they would be in trouble because the cost of living in their area has risen above wage levels .A system like that would require regional inflation figures would it not ?

---------- Post added at 22:27 ---------- Previous post was at 22:23 ----------

If this gets through the minimum wage is next for the chop

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

IIRC that is the sort thing they're thinking of doing. In the future giving smaller increases to certain areas, rather than direct cutting of wages.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

They want people in the North to accept minimum wages for the same job as people south of Watford, would you be happy doing what they do for that kind of money, remember these people still have to pay mortgages or rent plus all the other living expenses.

If this goes ahead the will be strikes and they will be well supported.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

can't have us northeners having too much disposable income ,we'll be getting rid of the flat caps and clogs in favour of bowlers and real shoes .

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

They are employed by a Local authority of one sort or another, they should be paid on that local basis. It is about equalising pay between the public and private sectors in those areas. The public sector is being paid way over the odds/going rate for those areas.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

The government, just like any employer wants to pay as little as possible to attract the staff they need. It just so happens that south of Watford the figure is higher due it increased living cost.

I want the government to get value for money for services. That's not to say staff shouldn't be paid properly.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Out all policies to come out this government this by far the worst and most dangerous to our livelyhoods.

I hope for god its dropped to the bin it deserves.

We have 2 solutions my opinion Sort out the mess in south east living standards move it back to real world. The other is for union break up maybe this is the groundwork for this to happen. Split of physical north and south where both run as seperate entities parliments.

Like martyh said can of beans should as example say 26p whether its newcastle or london. Which goes for the same house prices and land costs. Until we end imbalance of UK the sooner we solve the country crisis. I would rather them slowly drop the weighting of london which all it did was drive house prices through the roof.

Its not northerners dragging country into hole its south east until government wakes up smells the coffee we wont see things change. Dropping wages will potentially throw the country into turmoil too. All that loss of money into the economy will be death nell to uk.

One thing london forgets is they quite happy getting northern business/individuals money but its hell with investing in these areas seriously. All they do is just hand out enterprise zones like confetti but dont really do anything.

Now this plan drop the wages further stiffling and collapsing local economies with it. As this the stark reality would happen parts of the country will become ghost towns with third rate services.

The south east will get so too belly heavy literally obesse from its greed. Those who can will flea north for the south in large migration numbers to try get there share too.

Ports will die businesses will cease economy will collapse.

Maybe the government want the north to turn into desolate slums.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

I disagree with this policy Mertle but i don't think Armageddon will be the result ;)

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas

I don't like the sound of that one bit tbh, you think that the government with it's PR and BS machines would have come up with Higher pay for NHS staff in richer areas it kind of sounds a bit more reasonable to me like that.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

The current situation is effectively lower pay in richer areas and overpaid in poorer areas.

Companies that operate in different countries pay the going rate for each country separately. This is the same principle.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

tbf, the headline is Guardianista-speak, not HMG-PR - the Government call it Regional Pay...;)

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Yes Hugh i make you right on that one.

Though Iain Dale was talking about this on his LBC show yesterday morning,and it turns out this "regional pay" will apply to staff only if bought in, the upper management have been exempted surprisngly er not!,even Iain Dale had to take issue with the built in unfairness in that one.:erm:

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Let's not run away with the notion that there's no poverty in London.

http://www.poverty.org.uk/reports/lo...20findings.pdf

According to this:

http://endchildpoverty.org.uk/files/...k-part-one.pdf

12 of the top 20 worst constituencies for child povery are in London.

Yes I know fat cats and bankers tend to make most of the headlines for obvious reasons...

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

If you keep importing poverty, what else do you expect?

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

... a message wasted on those who opened the floodgates...

Having said that, many of the inner London boroughs in particular have traditionally been particularly poor and run down.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

Any chance anyone here could have a large spoonful of reality?

Regional pay differences have always existed.

I remember back in '93 I was working in Wigan on a salary of £13,000. I was then transfered to London and my salary was increased to £17,000.

That's because that's what my firm payed someone for my position down there.

There's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be the same for Public sector workers.

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

How could it work in practise? Judging London vs Rest of the UK is one thing but what about disparities within regions? Living near or in a City compared to living further out?

Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas
 

I fully expect the law of unintended consequences will apply...