The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7227 p797
7 December 2002

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New NHS pay "could offer a way forward" for pharmacists, says guild

Major reform of National Health Service pay, which the Department of Health says means a 10 per cent basic pay increase over three years, could be positive step for hospital pharmacists.

Ron Pate, chairman of the Pharmaceutical Whitley Council staff side, gave a cautious welcome to the proposals. He told The Journal: "Overall, the 'Agenda for Change' proposals are a step forward. With further work they could be a positive development for pharmacists in the managed service."

The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists has identified areas for further analysis and negotiation. These include the application of retention and recruitment premiums, the move from a 39-hour to a 37.5-hour working week, payment for on-call work and the guild's desire to see a consultant or specialist pharmacist grade introduced.

Under the "Agenda for Change" programme, all National Health Service jobs will be weighted using a single NHS job evaluation scheme. Standard job profiles for most common NHS jobs are to be produced. Where jobs fit into one of these profiles then they will be placed on a single eight-band pay scale at an appropriate point. Only those jobs not fitting a profile will be individually assessed by trained local evaluators. The guild says that it is waiting to see the draft job profiles for pharmacists, which should be released in January.

Evaluation will measure 16 factors including skills and knowledge required to do the job, the responsibilities involved, and the physical, mental or emotional effort required and any extra demands imposed by the working environment. This will replace existing allowances leading to higher levels of basic pay. Supplements for overtime or on-call working and cost-of-living allowances (such as London weighting) will be calculated as a percentage of basic pay. Trusts will also be able to offer recruitment and retention premiums of up to 30 per cent of basic pay in specialist or geographical areas with recruitment problems.

There are to be common terms and conditions of work. These include a 37.5 hour week, standard annual leave allowances (incorporating the current extra statutory days) and definitions of when out-of-hours work starts and finishes. There will be transitional arrangements and protection for staff who might lose out under the new conditions. As part of the "Agenda for Change" programme there is to be a 10 per cent basic pay rise for all staff, to be implemented as a guaranteed 3.225 per cent increase each year for three years.

The new proposals will be subject to formal consultation with all NHS staff. The guild is looking at how it can obtain its members' views as part of this consultation.

The new pay deal has been hammered out over four years of negotiations and will see the end of the complicated structure of 11 Whitley Councils and almost 650 staff grades with thousands of different allowances, and a plethora of arrangements for working hours, annual leave and overtime.