English nurses have reluctantly accepted a revised pay deal that is inferior to that given to Scottish and Welsh nurses.

The original 2.5% pay increase was given to Scottish nurses in a single increase but nurses in England were expected to accept the increase in stages amounting to only a 1.9% net increase.

A revised deal has been accepted which will mean a 3.4% increase for the lowest paid NHS workers but only a 2.08% increase overall.

No Mandate Brown’s excuse for offering nurses in England an inferior pay deal to the one given to his own constituents is that a staged pay increase is necessary to maintain low inflation and steady growth.

So, English nurses and NHS workers are required to accept an inferior pay deal to protect the economy but their Scottish and Welsh colleagues – doing the same job with bigger budgets – are allowed to have a better pay deal that Gordon Brown says will damage the economy.