Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of including NHS workers employed in (a) charities and (b) social enterprises in the Agenda for Change pay awards.

Independent providers, including not-for-profit organisations and social enterprises, are free to develop and adapt their own terms and conditions of employment. This includes the pay scales that they use and any non-consolidated pay awards they choose to make. It is for them to determine what is affordable within the financial model they operate, and how to recoup any additional costs they face.