Nurses at the John Radcliffe Hospital say they feel "undervalued" after being handed a 'pay cut' following their work through the pandemic.
The ITU (Intensive Treatment Unit) nursing team at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford are set to have their recruitment and retention pay premia taken away, which is 10 per cent of their basic salary.
Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) who run the John Radcliffe, has confirmed the payment will be cut in March following a six-month consultation.
The payment was a short-term pay premium awarded to some critical care staff to address historic recruitment challenges that the trust believes it no longer faces to the same extent.
The trust has said the payment had resulted in "inequities" across their critical care nursing teams.
A member of the ITU nursing team at the John Radcliffe, who wishes to stay anonymous, said the team is "extremely saddened and disheartened."
The nurse said: “I have been a qualified nurse for twenty years this year and most of that within the John Radcliffe Trust and I cannot believe that they are treating staff like this. I have not felt this undervalued in my whole twenty years dedicated to the service.”
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The nurse explained that many staff feel undervalued after receiving this cut because they worked hard though the pandemic. The nurse also feels without the pay premia, there is no incentive to progress and take the ICU course.
The cut has been called "short-sighted" by nursing staff as many feel the decision did not consider the impact on staff.
The nurse said: "People do acknowledge that it was always going to go at some point, but it doesn’t quell the feeling of worry disappointment and the anger over poor timing and feeling undervalued."
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OUH has said it continues to pay its nursing staff in line with the national Agenda for Change framework, and all other NHS and Foundation Trusts.
An OUH spokesperson said: “We are very grateful for the incredible work of our critical care team throughout the pandemic. We are very conscious of the need to treat all our staff fairly and reward them in line with principles of equity. We understand how some of our staff may feel about this payment ending, so we took some time to consider this decision and had a six-month notice period and believe it to be in the best interests of staff and patients overall.
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“Moving forward, we continue to work with the team to focus on and develop a range of other valuable initiatives and incentives. Later this year, we will be opening our new state-of-the-art critical care building at the John Radcliffe Hospital, which greatly improves the working environment for our team and offers an attractive place to work for anyone looking to further their career in critical care.”
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