Digital NHS: Government rejects advice to increase pay to boost IT staff numbers

The UK government has rejected calls to offer higher salaries to employees working on digitising the NHS in England to help boost their numbers, after a call from MPs.1A report from the House of Committee Health and Social Care Committee, published in June, identified several challenges for digital transformation across the NHS, including a “lack of basic functioning IT equipment” and a shortage of specialist IT staff.2 Increasing salaries was offered as a key solution to tackling staff shortages to make pay more competitive with those offered by the private sector.But the government’s response to the recommendation cited a lack of flexibility in the NHS Agenda for Change pay structure. Instead it highlighted opportunities to use “recruitment and retention premia” to enable NHS employers to offer pay uplifts to promote retention of skilled staff. These remain subject to approval processes and their use is constrained by budgetary issues, according to…
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