Ben Spencer
Main Page: Ben Spencer (Conservative - Runnymede and Weybridge)Department Debates - View all Ben Spencer's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to the fact that my wife works in the NHS. NHS staff pay is and always will be a highly contentious issue—it was contentious during the junior doctor contract debate and we do not need the back end of a pandemic for it to be so at the moment—because of the mere existence of national pay contracts, pay awards and review bodies. As part of the implementation of the changes proposed in the future of health and care White Paper, will my hon. Friend view alternative models that allow decisions on individual staff pay to be set by local employers, such as NHS trusts themselves, so that they can be best suited to the employees and the services they work for?
Helen Whately
I thank my hon. Friend, who makes a really important point. The balance between nationally set pay and local pay has been a point of much debate over the years. There are pros and cons to both ways. We do not want to have trusts competing directly all the time for workforce, but on the other hand there are higher costs of living, for instance, in some areas. That is why there is some flexibility in the system for different levels of pay according to different areas, as he will well know, and some extra support in areas where it is hard to retain staff. I always to listen to his expertise, which I really value.