Hospital Pharmacist
Vol 10 No 1 p4
January 2003

News summary

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Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists: Agenda for Change (more)

Guild cautiously welcomes new NHS pay deal

The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists is cautiously welcoming the new NHS pay deal proposed by the Secretary of State for Health on 28 November.

Details of the "Agenda for Change" proposals were outlined in The Pharmaceutical Journal (7 December, 2002, p797). A major reform of pay is planned, with a 10 per cent basic pay increase over three years. The NHS jobs being considered will be weighted using a single job evaluation scheme. Jobs will be evaluated on 16 factors, and standard job profiles will be produced for the most common NHS jobs. Where jobs fit into one of these profiles, they will be placed on a single eight-band pay scale at an appropriate point. The jobs not fitting a profile will be assessed by local evaluators.

The guild has identified areas within the new proposals that will require further negotiation, such as the application of recruitment premiums.

Ron Pate, chairman of the guild's Pharmaceutical Whitley Council staff side, told Hospital Pharmacist that pharmacists need to be aware that the information made available on the pay reforms is only part of the picture.

Mr Pate said that there are significant elements that have yet to be formally announced, which include details of the agreed job evaluation scheme and the suite of job profiles. Only once all the details within "Agenda for Change" have been made available will trade unions start the full consultation process with their members, he said.

Subject to the outcome of consultation, the new pay system will begin to be introduced in some early take-up sites in the Spring. In the interim, the guild is being consulted on the job profiles available and their evaluation.

Mr Pate said: "This is clearly a major and critical task and the guild council may well need to seek help from members to help inform this process."

An agreement on the job profiles for pharmacists is expected to be reached during February, said Mr Pate. It is not entirely clear what will happen after this, although the guild will be progressing current work on modernising grading definitions and career structures.

Commenting on the Government's plans to allow a small group of "foundation" hospitals to set their own pay rates, Mr Pate said that this would complicate the Agenda for Change proposals. If all hospitals become foundation hospitals, market forces will still apply, and this begs the question of how pay bargaining will be carried out for the NHS, ie, nationally or locally?

Mr Pate said: "Local pay bargaining has been tried before and failed. For the Government to raise this issue at the time of trying to get agreement on Agenda for Change is unhelpful."