Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to help resolve pay disputes with NHS staff in relation to settlement for 2022/23.

Ministers at the Department wrote to representatives of health unions early in January to invite them to meet to discuss the evidence that the Government will be submitting to the Pay Review Bodies for the 2023/24 pay round. These meetings took place in the week commencing 9 January.

The Government is focused on the 2023/24 pay review process but also recognise that despite over one million National Health Service workers receiving a pay rise of at least £1,400 this financial year, global economic headwinds are putting household budgets under pressure and we are happy to listen to concerns from health unions about this.