ABSTRACT

This chapter examines nurses pay in relation to the dynamics of the UK nursing labour market. It focuses particularly on the situation since the establishment of the Review Body in 1983, and the debate on the potential use of local pay determination for National Health Service (NHS) nurses. The implementation of clinical grading in 1988 there has been other developments in relation to NHS nurses' pay. These are: Department of Health led attempts to pilot local pay supplements in the late 1980s; the use of performance related pay (PRP) in nursing in the early 1990s a dual attempt to introduce local pay in the mid-1990s. PRP for individual employees was in vogue in the early 1990s, as a mechanism for improving 'productivity' in the public sector, under the Conservative government of the time. Pay levels in nursing are often regarded as the main reason for labour market problems or are promoted as the main solution to labour market problems.