Matt Hancock urges NHS staff to continue to 'pull together'

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The Government recommendation, which would apply to nurses and other healthcare staff, was rapidly branded an “insult” by NHS workers. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) called the proposed increase “pitiful”, saying a 12.5 percent raise should be considered instead.

General secretary Dame Donna Kinnair added: “The Government is dangerously out of touch with nursing staff, NHS workers and the public.”

In an Express.co.uk poll – which ran from 2pm to 6pm today – asked: “Should NHS nurses get more than 1% pay rise, and if so how much?”

The poll received 6,035 responses and 62 percent (3,715) people said the vital key workers should not receive more than a one percent pay rise.

Up to 38 percent (2,286) said the NHS nurses deserve a pay rise while just one percent (34) said they don’t know.

One person said: “NO, they did the job they were paid to do.

“If they get a bigger rise then what about shop assistants, the bin men, the bus drivers, and other services.

“They had already had 12% over three years in the three years prior to the pandemic.”

A second reader said: “Yes they do deserve more.

“Pensioners deserve more, the police, teachers and shop workers deserve more.

“However we are in a financial crisis that we have not seen since WW2.

“So they will have to wait like everyone else.

“Tell the people who have lost their jobs about life not being fair.”

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Another reader – who claimed to be a healthcare worker – said the pay rise sounds “pretty damned generous”.

They said: “As a healthcare worker who has worked and been paid all throughout the pandemic, and knowing how much has had to be spent and borrowed to support the rest of the economy and those who could not work, I think 1% sounds pretty damned generous.

“I was expecting no pay rise at all because of the economies that will be needed to reduce the huge national debt.”

A fourth person commented: “Definitely not, they were doing their job plus overtime.

“Many people had to work harder and put themselves at risk.

“Typical unions trying to make political capital out of a pandemic.”

Someone else said: “There are plenty that have just had a 100% pay CUT.

“God knows how the self-employed have managed?”

Health minister Nadine Dorries defended the Government’s position, saying nurses have received a 12 percent increase in pay over the last three years, pointing out the average nurse’s salary was around £34,000.

However, frontline workers described her claims as “lies”.

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