Women health workers get £300m

MORE than 1,500 women health workers have won up to £200,000 each after an eight-year struggle for equal pay with male colleagues. They will share a £300m payout from an NHS trust in Cumbria in the biggest-ever equal pay award.

If others across the country take similar action and are successful, the NHS could face a black hole in its accounts.

Unison struck the deal on behalf of lower paid workers including nurses, catering assistants, sewing machine assistants and telephonists working for North Cumbria Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. Talks are now under way to ensure the award will not affect patients' services.

Earlier, after being shown men doing comparable work were paid more by the trust, an employment tribunal decided the women had suffered pay discrimination since 1991. The trust then negotiated directly with the union over the settlement.

The women will each receive between £35,000 and £200,000 to make up the difference in their pay. The biggest windfall will go to C-grade nurses at the lower end of the pay scale earning £17,060 a year. They were shown to be doing tasks comparable with medical technical officers on £26,939 a year who were mainly men. Female nurses in this grade since 1991 could expect payments of £200,000 including interest.

Union officials were preparing to send out letters to 450,000 members in the NHS telling them that women workers had the right to back pay if they could show they earned less than men doing comparable work.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: 'It's been a long, hard struggle but this is a fantastic result for the members involved. We have always argued that there has been historic pay discrimination in the health service against women. It's dreadful, though, that it has taken so long to get justice for these hard-working women who are the backbone of the NHS.'

Linda Weightman, who has worked at Cumberland Infirmary for 17 years, thinks she will pick up £85,000. She said: 'It's taken a long time but it's been worth it. It's wonderful. It will mean a lot to members who have had to retire through ill-health, who worked themselves to a frazzle for the NHS and have bad backs or other problems. It will be a real boost to their pensions.'

Health officials believed they had averted the problem of unequal pay in the NHS with the Agenda for Change deal struck with unions last year. The North Cumbria deal related to discrimination before the Agenda for Change was introduced.

North Cumbria Acute Hospitals NHS Trust runs Cumberland Infirmary and West Cumberland Hospital. Around 100 members have retired since the case began and they will be paid compensation as well as receiving better pensions. The Trust said in a statement that a proposed agreement had been reached with unions which will be put to the 1,500 women involved, with a recommendation to accept.

Health minister John Hutton claimed the case was a local matter between the Trust and Unison because only a minority of trusts had pay structures similar to North Cumbria.