Chancellor is attacked for proposed four year pay freeze

The chancellor, George Osborne, has displayed a “cynical disregard for NHS staff” by announcing an effective four year pay freeze in his annual budget, the BMA has said.

In his 2015 budget speech on 8 July1 Osborne announced plans to restrict annual salary increases across the public sector to 1% over the next four years, equating to a pay freeze at best for many NHS staff when inflation is taken into account. The BMA’s chairman, Mark Porter, said that NHS staff were paying the price for “the government’s failure to put NHS finances on a sustainable footing.”

Osborne’s budget2 confirmed that the government would honour its pre-election pledge of an extra £8bn (€11.2bn; $12.3bn) a year in NHS funding above inflation by the end of this parliament in 2020—alongside the £2bn already announced for 2015-16.

The extra £8bn by 2020 was the figure outlined by NHS England’s chief executive, Simon Stevens, as necessary …