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Tory and Liberal Democrat ministers deny a cost-of-living pay rise to health workers

Tory and Liberal Democrat ministers show their true colours by ignoring the NHS salary review

Tory and Liberal Democrat ministers show their true colours by ignoring NHS salary review body recommendations and denying nearly half of all health workers in England and Wales a cost-of-living pay rise.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's decision to use annual increments that are part of salary scales as a pretext to block the recommended princely 1 per cent increase is disgusting.

His determination to hold down pay for 600,000 modestly paid staff while stuffing the mouths of senior managers with gold illustrates the coalition master plan for our NHS.

The conservative parties are intent on remaking our health service in the guise of a FTSE 100 business.

Just as the City of London Big Bang 30 years brought in north American companies and business practices, including huge boardroom bonuses, so the NHS is encouraged to expand pay differentials between the top layer of NHS bureaucrats and the poor bloody infantry.

NHS top dogs have enjoyed an 11 per cent rise in salaries since 2009 while nurses, health visitors, paramedics and therapists have suffered a pay freeze.

If the Pay Review Body was truly independent, it would have proposed a much more generous settlement, but its members operate within government economic guidelines.

With the coalition effectively slashing its proposal in half, this poses the question of what role it serves.

Hunt claims that implementing the review body recommendation in full would have been "unaffordable and would risk the quality of patient care."

Yet the Scottish government feels able to adopt the review body proposal in full, with an additional £300 a year for staff paid below £21,000.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander showed his unsuitability for his post by dismissing progression salary increases as being paid simply "because of time served in the job."

Annual increments are paid to encourage staff to endure initial low pay and remain within the NHS to achieve an increasingly skilled, experienced, reliable and professional workforce.

Yet the Tory view, as expressed in the Daily Telegraph, is that progression salary increases equate to "stealth" pay rises.

The alternative to annual increments is higher basic pay levels - the rate for the job - at the onset of employment rather than a gradual topping-up throughout a career.

Multimillionaire beneficiary of inherited wealth David Cameron states that it's "right to make difficult decisions about public-sector pay."

And the Labour leadership's obstinate determination to walk in the coalition's austerity agenda footprints leads shadow health secretary Andy Burnham to say: "We support pay restraint, including in the NHS, but it's unfair for NHS staff to be singled out in this way."

Yet he notes correctly that the Tory and Liberal Democrat wreckers have squandered £3 billion on an unnecessary and unwanted top-down NHS reorganisation.

They also waste millions every year paying to make senior staff redundant before re-employing them.

The scorn shown by conservative ministers to the dedicated staff who hold our health services together mirrors the contempt they feel for all working people.

Workers are there to be blamed and squeezed for all problems rather than those who benefit most from the capitalist system.

We're not all in it together. The rich are living it up and getting richer while working people suffer.

Pay restraint benefits the ruling class. It's the rich who should be restrained through public ownership a wealth tax, higher corporation tax and increases on the top rate of income tax.

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