The row about the proposed one per cent pay rise for NHS staff continues with Prime Minister Boris Johnson defending the amount but opponents calling it an insult.
The proposed pay rise, which will need to be agreed by an independent panel before going to Ministers this May, is the only rise for public sector workers.
Government says the impact of covid means there are financial constraints and the 1% rise is what can be afforded. Other public sector workers pay, such as for police officers, has been frozen.
But the decision has caused a backlash.
Thanet nurse and Save Our NHS in Kent campaigner Candy Gregory has accused the government of betraying health workers over pay.
The independent Thanet district councillor, who left the Labour group last year, said: “The government’s suggestion that NHS workers, after all they’ve done and gone through, should now get only 1% pay rise is a gross betrayal.
“Throughout the past year, NHS workers have worked extra shifts to cope with this government’s horrendous mismanagement of Covid-19 battling in understaffed and over capacity wards and departments with lack of effective PPE. They have seen around a thousand colleagues die and many more battle with long Covid.”
Candy says NHS workers feel betrayed: “The day after Budget day we learned that our NHS workers, whose pay had already fallen to insultingly low levels over the years, were being given a paltry 1% pay…
