Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of a one-off financial bonus for NHS staff who worked on covid-19 wards during the outbreak.
Over 1 million National Health Service staff received pay rises in April from existing multi-year deals and in July we accepted the independent pay review body’s recommendations of a 2.8% pay rise for specialty and associate specialist doctors, dentists, consultants and salaried general practitioners. The Government will carefully consider the pay review bodies’ recommendations for other staff groups next year when we receive them.
The NHS reward offer is about much more than basic pay and includes excellent benefits such as generous annual leave and a much-valued pension scheme. We want to ensure that the NHS employment offer continues to attract, retain and reward staff and this offer continues to be kept under review.