Striking NHS workers don’t realize how lucky they are to have a generous pension, health chiefs say

Striking nurses and ambulance workers don’t know how lucky they are to have such generous NHS pensions, health chiefs claim.

Employees will also be entitled to more holiday and sick pay than the legal minimum and receive bonuses for weekend work, they add.

NHS England has instructed trusts to raise the profile of ‘general NHS vacancies’ to recruit and retain more staff.

Bosses point to the NHS pension scheme, which sees employers put 20.6 per cent of staff wages into their pension pot, describing it as a “significant investment” which “staff outside the NHS will find difficult to replicate”.

The NHS is preparing for strikes on four out of five days next week, with Monday likely to be the biggest day of industrial action in healthcare history.

Unions claim workers are underpaid and are demanding wage increases that could push inflation up to 19.2 percent.

But in evidence to the independent NHS Pay Review Body, which advises ministers, NHS England said: “The NHS’s total offer of work benefits consists of paid and unpaid benefits.

“We found that most staff understood that the NHSPS was a good system but did not fully appreciate its competitiveness and value.”

It points out that 1.7 million people are members of the system. It also includes charts showing that the total pay package for an average nurse is more than £45,000 outside London and around £55,000 in the capital.

Evidence released yesterday says wages remain the biggest cost item for the NHS.

The NHS bill is worth £70bn, around 65 per cent of a provider’s spend. Every extra 1 per cent of wages for NHS trusts adds up to around £1bn. It warns that if a pay rise is not matched by funding, managers will be making a “difficult compromise”.