Delaying Tactics For NHS Dentists' Next Pay Award Have Officially Begun
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- Published: Friday, 03 February 2023 14:55
- Written by Peter Ingle
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For many years one of the government’s tools to manipulate the Dentists and Doctors Review Body (DDRB) has been to miss the agreed deadlines for submitting its evidence.
This tactic neatly delays the DDRBs deliberations and has helped to ensure that the pay award is announced late. This has been a constant feature over the last five years with the 2022/3 award due to be paid from April 2022, only being announced in the second week of January 2023. Dentists hope to see the results in their schedules soon, meaning that the meagre sub inflation increase, will be received 11 months late.
These repeated delays are just one reason that the BDA and BMA have joined forces to demand that the review body is reformed and returned to its original independence. Days after the two associations published their damning report, the NHS pay review body Chair, Phillipa Hird told a commons committee that the Department of Health has still not submitted its evidence for the April 2023 pay award. The deadline was January 11th. According to BBC Health Editor, Hugh Pym, on twitter, the Chair of the Committee, Conservative MP Steve Brine, said he was “astonished.”
Every year the same for the past 5 years plus @SteveBarclay promised @TheBMA and @TheBDA this year it would be different Hmmm
— Eddie Crouch (@EddieCrouch) January 31, 2023
GDPUK contributor Paul Hellyer wondered about the authenticity of Steve Brines reaction. “How did Steve Brine do when he was minister for dentistry? Were the gov submissions on time then? If not astonishment must be feigned surely??” Brine, who after being appointed as the health committee chair, said his priorities were to get "better value for our money," was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Primary Care and Public Health from June 17 to March 19. Checking the GOV.UK website would suggest that the 2018/9 evidence was submitted late.
The general comments following on from Hugh Pym on Twitter demonstrated the dissatisfaction amongst the professions with the review body. Amongst them was Mike Henley, a consultant urologist and BMA Council member and lead for pay and terms. He referred Hugh Pym to the BMA and BDA report adding that “this bad faith is why consultants real terms take home pay was down 35% by last April.”
Just as the access crisis and manpower issues simmered for some time before igniting, it may be that the medical and dental professions dissatisfaction with the review body system is about to combust.
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