We received a petition asking:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure a FAIR Staff and Associate Specialist (SAS) contract with improved out of hours pay than that proposed.”
Details of Petition:
“SAS doctors and dentists provide around a third of NHS hospital care. We provide specialised treatment and are often just as experienced as consultants in many specialities. A new contract is proposed for April 2008 which has many disadvantages. This proposes a 25% pay reduction for the top salary in the new grade. “Normal” working hours have been extended to 7am-7pm. The small increase of our basic pay in this contract is not really an increase as the number of programmed hours has also increased. Worst of all, our payment for being on call and working out of hours is being considerably reduced to around £7 per hour. This is an insult to the amount of training we have undertaken and is not comparable to other professions. There is also no compulsion for management to provide ongoing training in developing areas. The new contract makes no attempt to provide opportunities for SAS doctors to re-enter their training pathway to gain specialist accreditation and many may therefore have their career blocked. Under the proposed contract there will be a significant deterioration in the quality of patient care.”
· Read the petition
· Petitions homepage
Read the Government’s response
New contracts for Specialty Doctors and Associate Specialists were introduced on 1 April 2008. The Government is pleased that SAS doctors voted by a significant majority of 3:2 to accept the new contractual arrangements. This is a clear indication that they share our belief that the contracts are good for the profession, patients and the NHS.
The contracts now allow all to progress to the top of the pay scale over time, clear standards of entry to the grade, improved job planning, regular appraisal and dedicated time for continuing provisional development. The contracts provide fairer financial rewards which recognise the skills, experience and contribution of these doctors.
The new contracts provide increased salaries for the majority of staff. The top of the new Specialty Doctor pay scale is £64,632, compared to for £62,310 on the Staff Grade pay scale - a 3.7 per cent increase. The top of the new Associate Specialist pay scale is £81,609 compared to £79,756 - an increase of 2.3 per cent. There may be some doctors, at the top of their grade, who will not receive such significant increases in pay under the the new contractual arrangments.
In England, those moving from the staff grade to the new Specialty Doctor grade will receive average pay increases of 5.2 per cent in 2008/09 and five per cent in 2009/10. Average pay increases for Associate Specialists will be 1.8 per cent in each of the two years.
Basic hours for Associate Specialists will increase from 38.5 to 40 hours per week, bringing them into line with basic hours for other staff. This is accompanied by a commensurate increase in basic pay.
Those doctors working on-call will receive an availability supplement to remunerate them for the inconvenience of being on-call, as well as being rewarded for actual work undertaken. Recognition for out-of-hours work is at a rate of time and a third.
The Government has committed recurrent funding of £12million per year to support the continuing professional development of Specialty Doctors, and the Department of Health and NHS Employers published An Employers’ Best Practice Guide for Specialty Doctors in April. The guide highlights best practice for employers, with recommendations for the development of systems that support professional development of Specialty Doctors. The British Medical Association’s Staff and Associate Specialist Committee have welcomed this publication.
delicious
digg
facebook
