HEALTH service staff in Scotland have seen their take-home pay fall after receiving the first portion of a 4% pay rise and they are set to march on Holyrood this weekend to demand a fair increase and more investment in the NHS.

Nicola Sturgeon hailed the rise for those working under the Agenda for Change (AfC) system as a “fair deal” when the Scottish Government announced it in March.

It is four times more than the 1% offered to nurses in England, but while NHS members in the Unite and Unison unions voted to accept the offer, those in the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and GMB rejected it.

Saturday’s demonstration is being held under the banner of the grassroots NHS Fair Pay campaign, and Brenda Eadie, one of the organisers, said it was a pay cut for a lot of newly qualified nurses – who were the future of the NHS.

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She told The National: “The newly qualified nurses for the first three years are going to take a pay cut, so any nurse who actually qualified last year, they’ll actually see their pay decrease now compared to when they salary they got when they first started because the 4% is forcing them into the higher tax bracket.

“So they’ll pay more tax and National Insurance and they’ll also have a higher contribution to their pension.

“This in turn has actually left them with less than the original we had before the rise so it is a 4% pay cut.

“Over the last decade NHS staff have lost over 20% of their wages through pay cuts and pay freezes, and inflation always rising higher than the wage rise that we get. And it looks good when they put the numbers out and say ‘we’re giving them a pay rise’ but they don’t put out the rest of them that show actually they’re not.

“Staff are being run into the ground with some having to do the work of maybe three people because places are so short of staff.

“That’s not going to be rectified until they start to recruit and retain staff and giving them a pay cut is not going to do that.”

Pauline Brady qualified as a staff nurse last year during the pandemic, and said the “rise” had had a negative effect on her take-home pay.

“We’ve been given 1% of the 4% so far, and this month – because it’s pushed me into the next tax bracket for 21% tax, and then in turn my pension contributions also increased – I’m actually £45 down,” she said.

“Obviously the other 3% has still to go on that so that £45 will reduce, but I’m not going to see a difference for having a pay rise.

“There’s about 2000 of us across Scotland who opted to work through the pandemic as students employed by the health board and qualified in September, so that’ll be 2000 qualified nurses who are in the same position as me.”

Brady said she worked regular hours and her salary was the same every month, but it would be different for those working shifts.

“I work set hours in the community, so I work Monday to Friday 9-5 to my wage every month is the same and that’s how I’ve noticed, whereas people working on wards, their shifts change from nightshift to weekend and stuff like that.”

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She added: “Their monthly income changes every month based on what shifts they’ve done, so a lot of them probably won’t even know if they’re £45 down.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We all rely on the hard work and dedication of NHS Scotland, and never more so than during this pandemic.

“Unions representing a majority of NHS staff have voted to accept our offer of a pay rise of 4% on average.

“It represents the biggest pay uplift for NHS staff since devolution and recognises the unwavering commitment of NHS Scotland staff.

“If the Department of Health sticks with the offer it has proposed, staff in Scotland will be considerably better off in 2021-22 than their counterparts in England.”