I WAS heartened to see the issue of Ridge Lea Hospital bank (casual) staff pay making front page news.
The issue goes back to 2006 when a new pay structure was introduced. Unfortunately, not all staff were correctly assimilated due to what seems to have been an administrative oversight and since then a "forgotten few" have been paid around £1.50 per h
our less than their colleagues for doing exactly the same job.
To add insult to injury, we recently found out that we were also being paid below minimum wage.
Ironically, it is the staff that have been employed the longest that are being paid the least. The employer's response has been that a decision is "imminent" but this has been their response since at least June of last year. Bank staff make up a huge proportion of the clinical staff at Ridge Lea and many work on a full-time basis. Many have years of experience and crucially have built up excellent working relationships with the people they help to support – a cornerstone of mental health care.
However, as a result of this pay fiasco, staff morale has been severely affected, not just for those who continue to be paid unequally but also for higher-paid colleagues who fear a downscaling in pay in order to equalise salaries.
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