Nurses return to picket line as temps offered £40 an hour to break strike
18 January 2023, 00:51 | Updated: 18 January 2023, 06:58
A recruitment company which provides temps to the health service is reportedly offering nurses £40 an hour to break Wednesday's strike, as a two-day walkout over pay begins.
Temporary workers are reportedly being told by the firm there is a fast track compliance process, which means they don't even have to supply proof of their qualifications for the high hourly pay rate.
In an email, recruitment agency Your World Healthcare said Registered General Nurses were “urgently required” for shifts at York Hospital during the industrial action.
The message, seen by The Mirror, revealed the only documents required were an application form, passport, CV, criminal records check and a proof of address.
Nurses in the most common pay grade - Band Five - get between £13.84 and £16.84 an hour.
Your World Healthcare declined to comment on the £40 an hour offer for agency staff, The Mirror reported.
Figures showed NHS in England gave £3billion to agencies last year to provide doctors and nurses at short notice, up 20 per cent on the year before.
Responding to the figures, Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary Pat Cullen accused the government of showing hospital staff “a complete lack of respect”.
“The Government would rather spend billions on short-sighted measures [such as agency cover] rather than investing in nursing staff pay," she said.
Nurses at over 55 trusts are walking out in the latest public sector strike in an on-going row over pay.
The government has argued that it is simply following the Independent NHS Pay Review Body's recommendation.
It's expected thousands of operations and appointments will be cancelled, with reduced services expected in many areas.
But the RCN has agreed to provide staff for chemotherapy, emergency cancer services, dialysis, critical care units, neonatal and paediatric ICU.
The union has demanded that ministers consider a compromise, such as bringing forward a planned pay increase, or a one-off payment for staff.
But ahead of the strikes, Health Secretary Steve Barclay wrote in The Independent that any boost to wages would "take billions of pounds away from where we need it most".
