Nurses set for pay bonanza

Key London hospital staff could be in line for big pay rises in a bid to ease the shortages hindering attempts to improve services.

As Health Secretary Alan Milburn announced that the best-performing hospitals are to be given up to £1million, he also hinted at a significant pay rise for nurses, therapists, cleaners and other NHS workers in the South.

The Health Secretary concedes that the lack of key staff is crippling the efforts of hospitals in London and the South-East to improve their services and clear their waiting lists. Publication of the latest star ratings for hospitals showed that trusts in the North and the Midlands had outperformed them.

But his plans to give staff in the capital and surrounding areas a pay boost may run into difficulties from the unions, who see it as an end to national pay bargaining.

Announcing the second performance rating tables for all 158 NHS acute trusts in England, the Health Secretary said the best performing NHS trusts would get extra money, between £250,000 and £1million each, to spend as they wished to improve services.

Today's figures for the NHS showed that although some London hospitals had improved, there were relatively few which won a three-star rating, and with it, the chance to bid for extra money and more freedom from Whitehall control.

The system came under unprecedentedly heavy criticism from doctors, nurses, managers and unions whose leaders said it caused confusion, did nothing to improve morale, and was often measuring the wrong things.

But Mr Milburn was adamant that although inexact, the tables reflected factors which were important to patients, such as waiting times and hospital cleanliness.

Pointing out regional differences, he said that in London and the South, "there is under-representation of three-star trusts, and that is something we need to look at, particularly when it comes to improving measures such as recruitment and retention of staff".

"There's a different labour market in the South, and we need to take note of that as we construct a new pay system.

"There has to be greater local flexibility to recognise that, as well as the different housing pressures."

There are more than 4,000 nurse vacancies in the capital, but the shortage of other key professionals, such as radiographers, is beginning to impact badly on many services.

Ministers are negotiating with different professions for a reform of the pay structure, which would affect some 900,000 NHS staff.

Today's figures, which use 38 targets to measure how well a trust is performing, show that out of 46 hospitals gaining the top three stars, only six of them are in London.

Some of them had improved, with Guy's and St Thomas' moving from two to three stars, while a number languished near the bottom.

The worst was Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals Trust, which won no stars at all for the second year running, following a highly critical report from the investigation body, the Commission for Health Improvement.

A new chief executive has been appointed and now has just 12 months to turn it around.

The London Ambulance Service NHS Trust also fared badly. It was among three ambulance trusts named as the worst in England for meeting the 15-minute target for GP urgent calls.