Agenda for Change was a rip-off. I didn’t even vote in favour of it but got it anyway. It’s a good idea; everybody gets the same wherever they work in the country in a particular role.
Which is fine, so long as your employer (or NHS Employers, or for that matter the Department of Health) isn’t constantly moving the goalposts. They all agreed to sign up to it, but little did the unions know that just when the NHS were with shaking with one to seal the agreement the other hand was behind their back with the fingers crossed.
AfC is a propaganda tool. Instead of blaming spiralling NHS deficits on the bizarre and ill-considered pay rise for doctors and GPs they were given at the same time as AfC was implemented, nurses took the hit for those deficits because, well, it’s obvious they didn’t deserve any improvements under AfC because they are not as important as doctors are and nurses have always put up with being shat upon.
AfC is also a tool for NHS organisations to save money. Under AfC certain posts were rightfully assessed as requiring a certain level of remuneration. That unfortunately makes them (like nurses) expensive to afford, so their posts are conveniently ‘deleted’. As always, NHS employers (as any employer will do) have found their way around the agreed system of pay & conditions to sack expensive staff and ‘redistribute’ their work around everybody else but not pay those people extra for doing it. As always, the NHS takes the goodwill and commitment of its staff for granted.
And pardon me for suspecting a conspiracy: the Government is pushing foundation status for NHS trusts, with a deadline of 2012 for all NHS trusts to achieve foundation status. And what is one of the things that foundation trusts can do? Why, set the terms and conditions for its own employees. So in fact AfC terms and conditions don’t need to apply to NHS Foundation Trusts anyway.
Do you think the Government knew all along?
With AfC we sold our birthright. Is it too late to buy it back?
