Some GP surgery nurses ‘yet to receive pay rise’
Leading nurses have called for reform to the way nurses in GP surgeries are paid.
Nurses working in GP surgeries are being “repeatedly failed” when it comes to their pay, a union has said after it emerged that many staff are yet to receive a promised pay rise.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said that nurses working “at the front door to the NHS” are being “repeatedly failed when it comes to their pay”.
Last year the Department of Health and Social Care agreed to uplift GP pay by 6%.
Officials said this would mean that “additional funding will enable practices to uplift GP and staff pay by 6% – their first meaningful pay rise in years”.
But leading nurses have raised concerns that many staff are yet to see a change in their pay slips.
Three in ten (30%) nurses who work in GP surgeries in England said they received no pay rise in the last year, according to a survey of more than 1,600 general practice nursing staff who are directly employed by their surgery.
Meanwhile nearly half (45%) who responded to the RCN survey said they received an increase of less than 6%.
Just 21% said they had received a 6% uplift or more.
Almost one in 20 (4.4%) said they were still waiting for confirmation of their pay uplift for 2024/25.
The College has called for the Government to reform the way England’s 24,000 nurses who work in GP surgeries are paid.
“Nursing staff working in general practice work at the front door of the NHS and are central to its success, but they are being repeatedly failed by the Government when it comes to their pay,” said Patricia Marquis, executive director of RCN England.
“While the Government has made it clear that it wants to move more care into the community, it is failing to invest in those tasked with making it happen.
“An understaffed workforce is already struggling to recruit and retain people to the profession needed to deliver high-quality care to a growing number of patients.
“The Government must now change the funding model for general practice and ring-fence money for staff.
“Failing to act will only push people away from an already depleted profession and risks more patients being driven to A&E where they will wait hours for care they could receive at or closer to home.”
A separate poll of 2,200 British adults, conducted by YouGov on behalf of the RCN, found that 53% said they did not think there was enough capacity in their general practice.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “This government inherited a broken NHS where general practice and nurses had been neglected for years, but through our Plan for Change we will fix the front door of the health service, shifting the focus from hospital to community.
“We hugely value the vital work of general practice nurses and have proposed the biggest boost to GP funding in years, an extra £889 million.
“Government funding has been made available for pay uplifts, and this should be passed on to salaried practice staff.”
