[tweetiepooh]

And the article does mention the annual increment which means staff often get 3-4% on top of pay rises. So while 1% rise is small add the increment and it's not quite as small as some would make out. This increment is something the government may try to drop.

The article states the reason that it is old fashioned and rewards long service not competence. But long service is not bad in itself. The NHS does need to get rid of the dross but finds it difficult for various reasons and keep the good staff, and keep them in the jobs they are good at not promote them to management or leadership they may not be - need mechanism to pay better and higher for those functions.

I think they want to lose the increment because it's an invisible rise. Staff are getting (say 4-5% with increment) but the headlines are NHS staff only get 1%.