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Frustrating new gap in nurse pay: Push for capitation increase to close – not just reduce – pay gap
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Frustrating new gap in nurse pay: Push for capitation increase to close – not just reduce – pay gap
Thursday 30 March 2023, 10:41 AM
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This month the pay-deal gap between practice nurses and their hospital nurses more than doubled [Image: NZD]
Our desire is that the pay disparity is resolved in full
General practice leaders still seek funding to match new hospital nurse pay rates for their nurses despite health minister Ayesha Verrall signalling the aim is to reduce, and not remove, pay gaps.
Dr Verrall indicated via email on 9 March that general practice may be eligible for funding from the second tranche of the “pay disparities initiative” announced last November.
But she said the $200 million-a-year funding package was not intended to fund eligible community and primary health employers to match Te Whatu Ora nurses’ new pay rates.
Interim pay equity to the tune of $540 million for Te Whatu Ora nurses was rolled out in March, giving most public hospital nurses a $12,000 or 14 per cent increase in their base salary.
General Practice Owners Association chief executive Philip Grant says that brings the pay gap between practice nurses and Te Whatu Ora nurses up to 22 to 27 per cent, which is creating “huge challenges” for recruitment and retention.
“Our desire is that the pay disparity is resolved in full,” Mr Grant says.
General Practice NZ chair, specialist GP Bryan Betty, agrees that “absolutely” the Government needs to fund and back community nurses getting equal pay to their hospital colleagues.
“Otherwise, it is totally devaluing what happens in the community, in general practice, and the absolutely phenomenal work that the nursing profession does in the community,” Dr Betty says.
Dr Verrall’s email says if Te Whatu Ora found nurse pay disparities for general practice, and other funded health sectors missed from the first tranche, then funding would be made available from 1 July.
This was later confirmed to be from the existing funding package which, she says, was intended to reduce pay gaps and not to result “in the same pay or working conditions” as Te Whatu Ora-employed nurses.
GenPro met Dr Verrall on 13 March and is working with Te Whatu Ora and NZNO on nurse pay disparity data, says Mr Grant. GenPro presented its analysis on the capitation increase it believes is needed to fund full pay parity with Te Whatu Ora.
Mr Grant says government officials have indicated they are looking for a “simple” and enduring solution to funding pay disparities. “In my mind, a capitation option would meet that requirement,” he says.
The pay gap is affecting patient services, with the “real worry” being how the health system will cope this winter if general practices can’t maintain services due to nursing shortages.
A GenPro survey, responded to by 185 practices late last year, found that 53 per cent had reduced services due to nurse shortages and 36.5 per cent had withdrawn some services.
From this month, the gap between what an experienced practice nurse can earn under the main primary care pay deal and the base pay they could earn at Te Whatu Ora has more than doubled from $8000 to $20,000.
GenPro is the main employer bargaining agent for that NZNO practice nurse pay deal, which expired on 31 August 2021. The parties last met on 7 March to discuss ways to resolve funding barriers to the long-standing pay parity claim.
Parity, equity and disparities: A terminology timeline
December
2020
Health minister Andrew Little says pay parity for primary care nurses is important and ministry and DHBs working on how to achieve it
2021
Cabinet agrees to fund $540 million DHB nurse pay equity claim lodged in 2018, agreed to in principle in December 2021 but not then ratified (challenged by NZNO)
June
2022
Mr Little tells Rotorua GP CME a government agency report on framework for pay “relativities” between primary care and DHB staff is due soon
July
2022
Mr Little tells RNZCGP conference the Government remains committed to working on pay parity and that the delayed DHB nurse pay equity deal would have been “basis of pay parity elsewhere in sector”
November
2022
$200 million-ayear government “action on pay parity” package announced, excluding primary care, for employers to “fix pay difference” with public hospitals
March
2023
New health minister Ayesha Verrall marks historic interim pay equity rates for public hospital nurses, says general practice may be eligible for November “pay parities initiative” if pay disparities found, but intention is to reduce gap and not match Te Whatu Ora nurse pay
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