It says: “We’ll clap you but not pay you.”
The insult of this pay offer deepens when other factors like the money squandered on consultants, some paid £6k a day, and the test and trace debacle, which is budgeted to cost £37 billion over two years, are taken into account.
The government refused to run our test and trace through the health and local authority networks, despite constant calls from local government and health chiefs.
When they did use these networks to implement the fantastic vaccination programme, it showed what it might have been.
Sadly, the contrast between the funding provided to private companies to provide test and trace compared to the derisory pay submission for NHS staff proves the old Tory Thatcherite mantra of ‘private good, public bad’ still reigns.