By Jenny Hope
18th June 2009
Daily Mail
A flagship pay deal for more than a million NHS staff has not resulted in promised savings or better productivity, says a damning official report.
Instead productivity levels fell by 2.5 per cent on average a year between 2001 and 2005, according to the Commons Public Accounts Committee.
Its report claims there is no evidence that the changes in working have been implemented.
Agenda for Change was brought in as a pay modernisation programme for 1.1 million NHS staff in England between 2004 and 2006.
It covers all staff, except doctors, dentists and senior managers and promised a streamlined pay system as well as a boost to staff training and development.
But the PAC found no evidence that £1.3 billion of savings predicted by the Government have been achieved or that system-wide changes in how staff work have been implemented.
A National Audit Office report in January also found no evidence of better working or increased productivity.
The Department of Health estimated cumulative savings from Agenda for Change of between £1.1 billion and £2.2 billion after giving a figure of £1.3 billion in its business case to the Treasury.
The Department calculated these savings on the assumption that new roles and ways of working had been implemented across the NHS.
"There is, however, no evidence that Agenda for Change has led to systemic changes to the way that NHS staff are working' says the report.
The NHS pay bill for Agenda for Change staff rose by 5.2 per cent a year on average since 2004/05 reaching £28 billion last year.
But productivity fell by 2.5 per cent a year on average between 2001 and 2005, although there have been signs of improvement since then.
Tory MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the public accounts committee, said 'It is not known whether the Agenda for Change programme has generated the predicted £1.3 billion savings.
'That makes it all the more incumbent on the Department to explain to us how the programme is going to support the £15 billion of efficiency improvements in the NHS planned for the next three years.'
Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said 'Transferring over a million staff to a new pay system in such a short time is no mean feat. NHS staff and employers have worked closely together to achieve this.
'Critics are wrong to speak out after so little time to say the changes have not brought about improvements.
'There is plenty of evidence to show Agenda for Change has made the NHS a better place for patients and for staff.' [Not according to every article I have posted!]
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