CAB129-37 — Page 479

Page 479 (iv) There is another group of cases where a breakdown in an important service may have to be faced unless some adjustments are made. For example, the revision of the salaries of the lower nursing grades in hospital has not yet reached the Nursing Assistant in mental hospitals, though it has covered the student and trained nurses in both general and mental hospitals. To stop short of the Nursing Assistant grade might have serious consequences in the mental hospitals. Similarly, the priority dental services for mothers and young children have already suffered a set-back through the remuneration of public dental officers employed by local authorities falling out of line with that of dentists in other branches of the National Health Service, and there might well be a more serious breakdown if nothing is done. Difficulties are also being met in recruiting the very limited number of technicians required for the hearing aid service, and an improvement in the present wage is overdue. On this type of case, it would be our hope that necessary adjustments could be made.

(v) A further group is provided by certain grades for whom no national scale is in existence. Scientists employed in hospitals (e.g., biochemists and physicists) are an example. In cases where the negotiation of national scales would be a help towards economy in administration we would like authority to proceed.

(vi) A final group consists of claims where the Staff Side have strong argu- ments based on precedents which already exist both inside and outside the National Health Service, and which, if the claim is rejected, they could use with great effect before an arbitration tribunal. An example is provided by the medical auxiliary grades. Certain minor conces- sions have already been granted to medical laboratory technicians, including the award of London weighting and the ironing out of differences between the scales applying in England and Wales, on the one hand, and in Scotland on the other. Grades such as the physio- therapists will expect to receive similar concessions, and if they are refused will have strong arguments to place before an arbitration tribunal.

4. This last group raises the question of awards by arbitration tribunals. If we reject claims which can then be taken successfully to arbitration, our action may be nullified unless different standards are adopted at arbitration in future. This goes beyond the special problems arising in the National Health Service and could only be dealt with on a general basis, and we do not suggest that the Health Service should be made the subject of any special restriction in this respect.

5. Details of the particular cases will be furnished if our colleagues so wish, but we thought that it might be enough to describe them in the broad groups into which they fall. We should be glad to have agreement to our proceeding on the lines proposed in (i)-(v) of paragraph 3 above, and guidance on the line we should take on cases falling within (vi) of that paragraph.

1st November, 1949.

A. W.

A. B.

APPENDIX

EXTRACT FROM SPEECH DELIVERED BY THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER IN THE

HOUSE OF COMMONS ON 27TH SEPTEMBER, 1949

*

*

*

But the present policy demands for its success a great measure of restraint in the matter of personal incomes. If it is not made to succeed, then deflation will be added to it and we shall have failed to avert mass unemployment and poverty. It is, therefore, of critical importance that nothing and I mean literally nothing should be done to increase personal incomes arising out of profits, wages or salaries at least until we can see how far our policy has succeeded in bringing nearer a balance in our dollar-sterling trade. Page 479 of 1097

*

*

E