Image copyright Science Photo Library Image caption Nurses will be among more than one million staff to benefit from the three-year pay increase
More than one million NHS staff, including nurses, porters and paramedics, are being offered increases of at least 6.5% over three years - with some getting as much as 29%.
The deal has been formally agreed by union leaders and ministers on Wednesday and will cost £4.2bn.
Staff will now be asked to vote on the deal, with rises backdated to April if they agree by the summer.
The deal is tiered with the lowest-paid in each job receiving the biggest rise.
The agreement covers all staff on the Agenda for Change contract - about 1.3m across the UK - which is the entire workforce with the exception of doctors, dentists and senior leaders.
'It won't solve every problem'
The agreement is complex. It means that:
half will get a 6.5% pay rise over three years
the other half will receive rises of between 9% and 29% because they are not at the top of their pay bands
the lowest full-time salary - paid to the likes of cleaners, porters and catering staff - will rise by 15% to more than £18,000
these groups will get an immediate £2,000 rise this year
a nurse with one year's experience would see their basic pay rise by 21% over three years, giving them a salary of up to £27,400
the deal includes a commitment on both sides to reduce the high rate of sickness absence in the NHS
Sara Gorton, lead negotiator for the health unions, said: "It won't solve every problem in the NHS but it will go a long way towards making dedicated health staff feel more valued, lift flagging morale and help turn the tide on staffing problems."
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of NHS Employers, said "compromises" have had to be made but he predicts the deal will make the NHS a "desirable" employer once again.
What happens next?
The unions, which represent staff from all over the UK, have been in talks with English negotiators.
The deal will now be put to staff in England with the results of that consultation expected by July.
If they agree it will be backdated to April.
Twelve health unions have backed the deal, but the GMB has not.
GMB national officer Kevin Brandstatter said the deal promised "jam tomorrow" and did not do enough to make up for the squeeze on pay since 2010.
"Long-serving, dedicated health service workers have had thousands of pounds swiped from their pay packets since 2010 by the government's cruel and unnecessary pay cap."
It will be up to the devolved governments to decide whether to implement the deal outside England.
Scotland has already given its lowest-paid staff bigger rises, so there could be some divergence in how the terms are introduced elsewhere.
How good is the deal for staff?
When the unions entered talks, they were asking for 3.9% a year.
Under the deal agreed on Wednesday, pay will increase by 3% in the first year, but the future years will see smaller rises.
Once you take into account inflation - forecast to be 2.4% in 2018, then 1.8% and 1.9% in the following two years - it is likely the rises will be fairly small in real terms.
But what is important - for the unions at least - is that many will get much more.
How much depends on where individual staff are on their pay bands.
NHS pay is split into nine bands, each with quite broad ranges.
Those at the very bottom of their pay bands could get up to 29%. Those close to the top are likely to get in the region of 9%.
'I' only getting the minimum rise, but I back it'
Image caption Tracey Budding will only get 6.5% more over three years as she is at the top of her pay band
Tracey Budding works as a senior nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit and is an active member of the Royal College of Nursing.
She is at the top of her pay band so will only get the 6.5% minimum.
But she is backing the offer.
"It is a good deal," she says. "It recognises the fact we have not been getting the pay rises we should have.
"It makes it easier for nurses to move up the pay bands and that in turn should help attract and retain nurses."
The pay deal has been a long time coming
The government first announced it would lift the public-sector 1% pay cap in September for police and prison officers, and then followed that with a promise in the Budget that NHS pay would be looked at, lifting the 1% cap a year early.
The NHS has been under pressure to retain staff, after it was revealed that one in 10 nurses was leaving the public sector in England every year.
The Royal College of Nursing claims average pay for nurses has fallen by more than 14% in real terms since 2010.
Statistics obtained by the BBC from NHS Digital showed 33,000 nurses walked away in 2017, piling pressure on understaffed hospitals and community services.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the cost of the rise would be covered by the Treasury rather than coming out of the NHS budget.
"The agreement reflects public appreciation for just how much they have done and continue to do," he added.
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The government has abandoned plans to force 1 million NHS staff to give up a day’s holiday in return for a salary increase that will mark the end of a pay cap that has existed since 2010.
Ministers have stopped insisting on an extra day’s work a year as a precondition of a deal that, if accepted, will give health service personnel in England a 6.5% rise over the next three years. Details of the package are due to emerge on Wednesday after months of talks between the government and leaders of 14 trade unions representing all non-medical NHS staff.
The NHS pay deal is just another cut, and an insult to overworked staff | Owen Jones Read more
Under the deal nurses, midwives, paramedics, healthcare assistants and other staff will receive 3% in 2018-19, 2% in 2019-20 and 1% in 2020-21. It will cost the Treasury about £4.2bn over those years to try to neutralise an issue that proved difficult for Theresa May to handle in last year’s election campaign and which promoted threats of the first ever strike by NHS nurses angry at seeing their income fall in real terms. She coined the phrase “there is no magic money tree” when challenged by an NHS nurse over the pay cap during an edition of Question Time.
Key figures on both sides negotiating the pay offer feared that, unless the government removed its insistence that staff forfeit one of their 27 days of annual leave to help finance the deal, it could lead to union members rejecting it and scuppering any sort of agreement being reached.
Frontline NHS staff reacted negatively when the Guardian revealed on 9 March that ministers had made an extra day’s work a “red line” precondition of any deal. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, called the suggestion “mean-spirited”.
A senior NHS source claimed that NHS Employers, which represents NHS trusts in issues involving staff terms and conditions, had put the idea of removing a day’s leave on the table and that some unions had agreed to it. However, the Treasury, which had insisted that any NHS pay deal would have to be part-financed by greater productivity, was also thought to have been involved.
Patient safety hit by lack of staff, warn 80% of NHS workers Read more
“Jeremy Hunt took it off table during a meeting with Janet Davies, the chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, as they felt staff had been working so hard over winter it would be counter productive,” the NHS source said.
The 14 unions are poised to recommend the deal to their members at a meeting on Wednesday of the NHS staff council. Sara Gorton, the head of health at Unison, which represents about 400,000 staff, has been leading negotiations for the unions.
It is hard to predict how union members will respond to the proposed deal, even though their leaders will endorse it. They have seen their real-terms income fall by an estimated 14% as a result of having a pay freeze imposed on them in 2011 and 2012 and then seen their salaries rise by just 1% in the five years since.
Doctors and dentists have their own pay review body and conduct their own separate negotiations from the 1 million-strong non-medical workforce, who are all covered by a longstanding pay talks framework called Agenda for Change.
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Tory ministers today confirmed they will offer a major pay rise for more than a million NHS staff after eight cruel years of austerity.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt revealed the NHS starting salary will rise from £15,404 to £18,040 by 2021 - and for all staff it's worth 6.5% to 29% over three years.
"Rarely has a pay rise been so well deserved for NHS staff who have never worked harder," he declared.
Campaigners said it was the first step to solving the NHS staffing crisis.
And Labour congratulated Tory ministers for "backing down" from a cruel plan that would've made workers give up a day's holiday.
But there are still questions about how the deal will be funded - and union chiefs have warned it won't keep up with rising prices in the shops.
(Image: PA)
So if you or someone you know works in the NHS, what does today's offer mean? What are the concerns, and how will it be signed off?
Here's everything you need to know.
The offer in brief
(Image: PA)
More than a million NHS workers will be offered a pay rise deal worth between 6.5% and 29% over three years, depending who they are.
It was agreed at a meeting between 14 unions and NHS employers.
Before now pay had been frozen, or rises capped at 1% a year, since 2010.
Hospital caterers, cleaners, porters and other staff on the lowest pay grade will get an immediate pay rise of more than £2,000 this year - a rise of between 11% and 13%.
This would mean that, from April 1, every NHS worker in England is paid at least £8.93 an hour, which is 18p above the voluntary living wage of £8.75.
What NHS staff does it include?
The deal applies to 1.3million workers on the Agenda for Change contract - which is most NHS staff, except doctors and dentists.
So it includes nurses, paramedics and clerical and lab staff.
It covers health workers in England but is expected to be mirrored in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Who'll get what?
Percentage rises vary hugely because lower-paid staff should get a bigger lift than higher-paid staff.
It's also complicated because NHS staff are paid in "bands" that have a few thousand pounds' variation within them.
So pay bands are going up, but staff can also progress to higher pay within the same band at the same time.
Half of NHS workers are already at the top of their pay band so will receive a 6.5% increase, the minimum possible.
The other half will get between 9% and 29%, with midwives and physiotherapists among those in line for the biggest increase.
NHS officials said the pay of the lowest-paid staff, such as porters and cleaners, will increase by 15%.
This would take the lowest full-time rate of pay in the NHS to £17,460.
Changes to pay in full
The below figures are simplified and show the MINIMUM basic pay in each band. Pay can also progress within a band, and urban areas have "weightings" that boost pay. For the full chart including rises in every year click here.
Lower paid staff
PAY BAND 2017/18 2020/21 Band 1 £15,404 £18,005 Band 2 £15,404 £19,337 Band 3 £16,968 £21,142 Band 4 £19,409 £24,157 Band 5 £22,128 £26,970
Higher paid staff
PAY BAND 2017/18 2020/21 Band 6 £26,585 £33,176 Band 7 £31,696 £40,894 Band 8a £40,428 £46,518 Band 8b £47,092 £55,450 Band 8c £56,665 £64,931
Highest paid staff
PAY BAND 2017/18 2020/21 Band 8d £67,247 £77,863 Band 9 £79,415 £94,213
(Image: AFP)
How much will it cost?
The government will invest £4.2billion over three years to fund the pay hike.
Where is the money coming from?
(Image: AFP)
A Downing Street source said for 2018/19, the pay rise will be funded from government reserves.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss said: "We made sure we had the money for it, because it is a priority.
"And we've made savings elsewhere in the public sector to do that, which is the responsible thing to do.”
But for the other two years it's not yet confirmed.
That raises the possibility that there could have to be cuts or tax rises elsewhere to fund it.
Is everyone happy with it?
No.
Of the 14 unions only one - the GMB - is telling its members to reject the deal.
Why are people unhappy?
(Image: Adam Gerrard/Daily Mirror)
GMB, whose members include thousands of paramedics and other health workers, said pay will still rise slower than prices in the shops.
That's because RPI inflation is forecast to increase by 9.6% over the next three years.
The other big question the GMB asked was - what about all the other years since 2010?
Since 2010 paramedics have lost an average of more than £14,000, midwives £18,000 and staff nurses £14,500 because of the pay cap, said national officer Kevin Brandstatter.
He added: "Jeremy Hunt's promise of jam tomorrow is simply not good enough for NHS workers who, during the past eight years, have faced the biggest pay pinch in living memory.
"Long-serving, dedicated health service workers have had thousands of pounds swiped from their pay packets since 2010 by the Government's cruel and unnecessary pay cap.
"After all that suffering, is a below inflation pay rise the best they can offer?"
Labour Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth demanded a guarantee that no staff member will face a real-terms cut in any single year.
And he demanded to know where the money will come from.
Staff "need reassurances this government won’t be giving with one hand and taking away with the other," he said.
Will you have to give up a day's holiday?
No.
Leaked proposals earlier this month suggested staff would be asked to give up a day's holiday in order to accept the deal.
But Labour today said they were pleased the Tories had "backed down".
WHEN will I get more money?
(Image: Surrey Advertiser)
If the agreement is accepted, the extra funding for English health budgets will go through the Barnett formula into budgets in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
This will allow unions, devolved governments and employers to hold discussions on whether and how they want to implement the framework agreement for their health staff.
Health unions will now consult with their members over the pay offer, with the results known in June.
If the proposals are accepted, the pay rise should be in people's July wage packets, backdated to April.
What's the other reaction?
(Image: Getty Images Europe)
Unison's Sara Gorton said the NHS was facing a staffing crisis, adding: "The agreement means an end at last to the Government's self-defeating and unfair 1% pay cap."
The Royal College of Nursing's Josie Irwin said: "This deal is a significant move in the right direction from a government still committed to austerity."
Unite national officer for health Sarah Carpenter said: "At long last, after years of pay austerity, there has been a significant recognition that this harsh pay regime imposed on hard working and dedicated NHS staff can no longer be sustained."
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the Labour Party had been "vindicated" in calling for a "long overdue" pay rise.
Mr Ashworth told ministers that with "stories of staff turning to food banks" the pay cap should have been scrapped "years ago".
Ruth May, executive director of nursing at NHS Improvement, said: "The proposed pay deal today rightly rewards NHS staff for the amazing work they do every day."
And finally... what about other public sector workers?
(Image: PA)
The government is keeping its options open for other public sector workers.
Asked if other public sector workers could expect settlements above 1%, a Downing Street source said: "The independent pay review bodies will make their recommendations in the normal way.
"We have said as a Government that the arbitrary 1% pay cap is no longer in place. If people recommend changes to that, they will be considered.
"But let's just focus for a second on the fact that this is, we hope, a generous and important offer that recognises the incredible hard work, dedication and professionalism of NHS staff up and down the country."
