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The NHS pay deal agreed last month might not be the good news it initially appeared, for tens of thousands of outsourced staff, HSJ has learned.
Steve Barclay said the deal would be implemented for “all staff on the Agenda for Change contract” but it has emerged that staff working in social enterprises, charities, outsourced services and wholly owned subsidiaries – many of whom work under AfC terms and conditions or have their pay index-linked to the contract – are at risk of not getting part of the uplift.
The Department of Health and Social Care told HSJ that funding for extra non-consolidated payments for 2022-23, which were part of the deal, would only be covered for staff directly employed by NHS organisations. The one-off payments are worth an average of £2,000.
Some employers may be in a position to fund the uplift themselves, but there are fears many will not be able to.
There are tens of thousands of staff working in outsourced services across community and acute care, sexual health services, prison health, mental health and other sectors.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, warned: “If unaddressed, this oversight risks the creation of an unequitable, two-tier system for different staff delivering health services in England.”
One step forward…
A foundation trust has lost an £85m contract to provide healthcare services in its local prisons to a private company, after taking over the same services from the same company 230 miles away.
Oxleas Foundation Trust, which provides mental health and community services in south east London, runs offender health services in Kent and, until the end of this month, HMP Belmarsh and HMP Thameside in south east London.
The trust lost the seven-year contract for the two prisons to Practice Plus Group, it has been announced.
It comes after the trust last year won a seven-year £236m contract to run prison health services in 10 locations in the South West, which were previously run by PPG and by another NHS provider, as previously reported. Read the full story here.
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