Today's reports suggesting that nurses are to enjoy an inflation-busting pay rise will be welcomed by everybody - with the possible exception of the health trusts.

It is thought that the Pay Review Body will recommend a newly-qualified nurse's salary be increased by 11 per cent.

It sounds like a whopping increase, until you see the figures involved. Under such a deal, their annual pay would go up from £12,855 to £14,269.

The body was also said to be recommending a 4.7 per cent increase for experienced nurses.

Nurses have been underpaid for years. But their commitment to their work, and resultant reluctance to take industrial action, has led to successive governments ignoring their case.

It can be ignored no more. Nurses are voting with their feet, and the result is a staffing crisis.

The immediate crisis caused by the flu outbreak has demonstrated that the National Health Service is dangerously short of staff.

Nurses have had to work flat out, unable to offer the highest standards of care to their patients.

The health service has 8,000 nursing vacancies. School-leavers are put off the profession by the long hours and poor pay.

Many of those who do sign up leave the service soon after qualifying.

The only way to reverse this trend is to increase nurses' pay substantially.

It is right to place greatest emphasis on improving new nurses' pay.

After training for three years, a salary of less than £13,000 is scant reward.

But the pay of every nurse needs to be significantly increased if the health service is to attract people to the profession - and keep them.

The job of a modern nurse is demanding. They dispense drugs and give injections, work previously undertaken by doctors only. Nurses welcomed these extra responsibilities.

It is time they were paid for them.

The Independent Review Body is not expected to deliver its findings officially until next month.

That gives the Health Secretary, York's Frank Dobson, some time to do his sums. He has pledged to back the body's recommendations.

But pay rises of up to 11 per cent will eat a huge hole in the health budget.

It has been suggested that he will expect health authorities to fund the entire award through increased savings.

That is not feasible.

The trusts are at breaking point as it is. They could only fund the pay rise by cutting back on health care.

It is time the Government proved its oft-repeated commitment to the health service by funding the pay increase in full.

see NEWS 'Nursing unions attack pay deal'

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.