News / Unsocial hours costs within set limits

Workforce body NHS Employers has sought to calm finance directors’ fears that new arrangements for unsocial hours pay will add significant costs.

The new arrangements, which seek to harmonise unsocial hours for Agenda for Change staff, came into effect on 1 April but finance directors are  concerned about the impact on finances.

The measure, which applies to shifts worked on weekends, public holidays or after 8pm and before 6am, aim to bring the pay of lower-paid staff up to the level received by their better-paid colleagues. The new arrangements do not apply to ambulance staff.

In the new system, staff receive a percentage enhancement to their pay for working unsocial hours. This depends on their pay band and the day worked. Someone on pay band 1 would receive time plus 50% for working on Saturday. A colleague on band 2 would get time plus 44% for the same period. The enhancement falls as staff climb the pay spine, enabling employers to maintain parity between staff. If the unsocial hours make up more than half a shift, the enhanced rates apply to the whole shift.

Geoff Winnard, head of non-medical pay at NHS Employers, said the change amounted to settling ‘unfinished business’. He insisted employers and unions had come up with a solution that was within cost limits set by the departments of health.

‘For most staff the arrangements are little changed. The cost has come in terms of building up the arrangements for lower paid staff to something akin to what nurses and midwives were getting before.'

The deal will be phased over three years and will cost an estimated £75m a year in England. ‘In pay terms this is not a major cost. However, the departments of health have assured us the costs of making these changes have been taken into account in the funding given to the service,’  he said.

But costs will depend on the staff organisations had and how they were deployed. ‘We have come up with a generalised cost across the service but in some organisations it will cost relatively more than others. Individual organisations might need to be looking at how best to deploy their staff,’ he added.


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