Pension squeeze is another victim of inept NHS reform
“I’m not touching that, it’s a quagmire,” said the health minister fleeing from HSJ’s question at last week’s Conservative Party conference.
The query that caused the minister to take to their heels concerned the possibility of doing a deal on NHS pensions. HSJ had suggested that, with the NHS pension fund in a relatively healthy state and the Department of Health desperate to avoid a row, it was the Treasury’s intransigence that was preventing a settlement being reached.
Number 11’s hard line on NHS pensions is driven not only by a political zeal to reform what it believes are overly generous public sector rewards, but also specifically by a hardening view that the health service must not be given special treatment again. “We protected the NHS budget and our poll ratings on health still dived,” goes the thinking.
This week many HSJ readers will receive ballot papers asking them to consider industrial action if the government continues with the proposed public sector pension reform. Those who are members of the British Medical Association and Royal College of Nursing will face the same decision soon.
How readers vote is a matter for them. The danger of undermining public sympathy for NHS staff at a time of austerity must be balanced against the justifiable anger over yet another reform and a further squeeze on remuneration, especially at a time when some are now being asked by their own employers to give up holiday and work for free.
However, even if the various ballots do back strike action very few managers and clinicians are likely to risk undermining care by withdrawing their labour. Even working to rule and “withdrawing cooperation” is likely to be very limited. In the words of one clinical union leader, staff will be restricted to creating “noise in the system”, staging demonstrations and expressing their anger in the media.
Government negotiators, of course, know this and will use it to their advantage. The NHS will suffer the impact on staff morale precisely at a time when the DH wants it shored up to deal with NHS reform and the £20bn efficiency drive.
What a pity health ministers have burned all their political capital in pursuing ill-managed reform and seem unable to influence government thinking on pensions. No wonder they flee.
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Readers' comments (5)
Patrick Newman | 13-Oct-2011 2:18 pm
To strike or not to strike is always a dilemma for public sector workers -especially in health. Lateral thinking is needed to express the justified anger at the treatment metered out by the Coalition. This could be demonstrations in working hours, working to rule, non attendance of meetings, refusing to complete returns, occupying management offices, etc as long as properly approved by the unions. Failure to draw a line will simply encourage a government which has already tasted blood on public spending and when inevitably the deficit target has not been met will come back for more.
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David Hooper | 13-Oct-2011 2:27 pm
Has anyone ever put a squeeze on George Isborne's lifestyle
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ALYSON BRENCHLEY | 13-Oct-2011 6:25 pm
For managers I was going to suggest a put the Blackberry in the draw day-think recent events make this untenable.
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Anonymous | 14-Oct-2011 9:37 am
How nice to know that jeapordising the financial future of an NHS member who has given 40 years service is justified by Mr Osborne and his cronies as not giving the NHS special treatment again!!!! Wow, the breath taking meanspiritedness of such an action. There are some things in life which should be sacrosanct once put in train. Protecting already agreed pensions should be number one on the list.
At the moment many people in this country feel rightly impotent to do anything about this wanton vandalism of everything we hold dear. I just hope that the ballot box will prove the great leveller. The general election can't come quick enough for me!
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Gerald Wiley | 18-Oct-2011 11:46 pm
To quote Homer, "Don't go on strike, just do your job half-assed. That's the American Way." But on second thoughts...
It's a tricky one - striking is a hopeless cause, but is it better to die on your feet or live on your knees?
I did hear today of the first claim that maybe doctors shouldn't be expected to cross picket lines, and should be paid to stay at home instead. Go for it, my white-coated union brothers!
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