Chancellor Alistair Darling is making a ‘grave error’ in demanding a cap on public sector pay, the BMA has warned.
In his pre-budget report, Darling said the government was determined to protect frontline services and sustain the improvement delivered over the past decade.
But he declared that for the two years from 2011 he would seek to ensure all public sector pay rises were capped at 1%.
BMA council chairman Hamish Meldrum welcomed the commitment to protect frontline NHS services.
And he agreed that it was important the NHS was not crippled by spending cuts that would undermine patient care.
But he warned: “It is a grave error to penalise hard working NHS staff - who have already delivered efficiency savings of £10bn - with arbitrary caps on their pay.
“The government could have instead made real savings by slashing their bureaucratic and wasteful market based policies.”
Darling announced contributions by the state to public sector pension schemes, including the NHS pension scheme, will be capped by 2012. Public sector workers will make a greater contribution with those earning more than £100,000 a year paying more.
Read more at BMA News.