NHS pay April 2010-2011
Pay rates should rise by 2.25% on 1st April 2010 and there will be additional monies for Band 1, 2 and 3 staff and for some pay points on Bands 5 & 6 making the total value of the uplift 2.5%. Band 1 staff will gain 3% from a £420 flat rate increase for Bands 1, 2 and 3.

Politics has never been more important for health workers and the communities we serve. Above Les Sibley and fellow campaigners petitioning for a new NHS hospital. Report of Andrew Smith, the MP for East Oxford who attended our Annual General Meeting.

NHS Preferred Provider
In a welcome retreat from the current Department of Health pro-market policies the government has agreed that the NHS should be the preferred provider of health services. Chief Executives have been issued with the following circular but will they abide by these instructions or has the NHS privatisation machine got out of control?

NHS Cuts - What the union says
Convenors (senior stewards) from the UNISON Oxfordshire Health branch have met and discussed the proposed cut of £240m in NHS budgets over the next 5 years. The convenors were shocked by these proposals.

This year NHS funding has increased by 7.5% in real terms - next year it is due to increase by 1.6% in real terms. Both Labour and Conservatives have promised to maintain NHS funding levels for the next parliament and opinion polls show that this is exactly what the public wants.

The government in its pre budget report has confirmed that NHS frontline services will be protected from cuts though there are concerns that NHS Employers may have their own agenda see quotes below.

NHS Employers - 'Commissioning in a Cold Climate'

"there is an opportunity to use the looming ‘crisis’ as a catalyst for considering radically different ways of meeting health and social care needs. The scale of the spending reductions about to hit the NHS may enable commissioners to have conversations with local people, politicians and providers about previously unthinkable solutions to local health and healthcare"

"Alongside the tightening of finances for economic and demographic factors, a number of recent policy changes also have resource implications for PCTs including ... the separation of PCTs’ commissioning and provider functions and the restructuring of community health services, which are increasing management and transaction costs."

Commissioning in a cold climate