National terms and conditions are, you know, national

Staff at the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals Trust (one of the first wave of Foundation Trusts) are having to take strike action in a dispute caused by the Trust's refusal to pay them a recruitment and retention premium - despite the R&R payment being part of the national Agenda for Change handbook, and already having been proven in a test case to be a contractual entitlement for the relevant staff groups in the NHS.

Recruitment and Retention Premia are supposed to be paid to any staff groups for which the NHS would otherwise struggle to fill vacancies or retain staff. Some R&R payments are agreed locally, but others - for staff who are in short supply right across the NHS - are written in to the national agreement which created Agenda for Change. It is just such a national R&R payment which the Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals are refusing to pay. It sounds like Scrooge is alive and well, and living (well, working, anyway) in Doncaster. Step forward Mr Joe Brayford, HR Director at the Trust, who is also chair of the national Pay Negotiating Council - the body with responsibility for agreeing Recruitment and Retention Payments on a national level! So it's alright for other hospitals to be made to pay it, but presumably Mr Brayford thinks his own staff don't deserve it?

Unite / Amicus members have already taken a couple of days of strike action, and I understand that UNISON members may be voting soon on whether to join them. Good luck, and solidarity, to all of them!