A pay deal worth an average of £2000 is not being received by hundreds of medical professionals who work for private companies.
Community nurses and therapists who work for the NHS will receive the additional compensation in some parts of west England.
However, some healthcare workers in Bath and Wiltshire who are employed by outside firms have been informed that they will not receive the most recent pay award.
The government mandated that regional health administrators pay for the 5 percent pay award, which also included a one-time payment.
It is "very unfair," according to Health Care Resourcing Group (HCRG), that their employees will be paid less than NHS employees.
Private businesses and social enterprises were left out of this provision of the pay agreement, and the company blamed the government for this.
According to staff grades, the government offered the 5 percent pay increase for 2023–2024 in March along with a one-time payment of at least £1,655 to supplement last year's salary.
Thus, a newly registered NHS band five nurse would get a one-time payment of over $2000 as an example.
All NHS employees—aside from doctors—are covered by the offer.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) did not fund this non-consolidated portion of the pay agreement, according to HCRG, which supplies community staff in Bath and North East Somerset, Wiltshire, and Swindon, including nurses and physiotherapists.
The HCRG health worker, who wished to remain unnamed, told the BBC: "We feel as though we are being segregated from the NHS and a little bit let down by the Department of Health, especially since the Covid pandemic where a number of us were redeployed from our community settings to keep the NHS going and to reduce the strain on the core acute services.
Throughout the summer of 2020, I worked 60-hour weeks. We consider ourselves to be an essential component of the NHS, providing the same level of care as our colleagues who do receive this funding, so this is very disappointing and frustrating. " .
The government, according to Lanre Amosu, a representative for the Royal College of Nursing in Bristol, has created a "two tier system" that has left some nurses behind.
Even though the offer is inadequate at first, she continued, "Can you imagine getting nothing at all?".
Sirona Healthcare, a non-profit social enterprise that employs community workers in the greater Bristol area and receives funding from the NHS, has declared that it will implement the full pay award, including back pay.
However, HCRG has advised staff to email their MP.
The chief operating officer of HCRG Care Group, Patrick Birchall, stated: "Like in years past, our colleagues - nurses, therapists and other health professionals on these contracts - will receive every penny of funding for the pay award that we get, but we cannot pass on what we have not received. ".
The DHSC advised local health funders to swiftly determine any additional financial needs resulting from this pay award.
They contend that the offer shouldn't have an impact on the quality of patient care or frontline services.
