AFTER several years of pay restraint NHS workers will be pleased to hear the First Minister say the 1% cap is “unsustainable” given inflation is rising.

There is no guarantee that the cap will be lifted but the recognition the pay rise is not enough is a welcome indication it could be coming to an end soon.

Almost on a weekly basis nurses, doctors and other NHS staff are thanked for their efforts and told what a wonderful job they do.

Anytime the issue of pay, staff shortages, waiting times or any other of the serious pressures affecting the NHS and staff are raised with government ministers the heartfelt thanks are issued.

However as everyone knows, you can’t take thanks to the bank and no matter how genuinely sincere those thanks are you can’t pay bills with thanks, and gratitude doesn’t put food on the table or shoes on children’s feet.

The decision to impose the pay restraint is one taken by the Scottish Government.

Of course there has been reduced budget allocations form Westminster and that affects how much can be spent on what in Scotland.

But the decision on what to spend it is taken by the Scottish Government.

The Pay Review Body makes its recommendation to the UK Government and it then sets the pay structure.

However the Scottish Government has the choice to either follow the UK or deviate if it chooses.

It has made changes in the past to protect the lowest paid and nurses in Scotland are paid slightly higher than in England.

But telling a nurse or health professional working under the twin pressure of increasing demand with resources failing to match that you could be worse off If you worked in England is like saying ‘think yourself lucky’.

Ministers chose to follow the recommendations of the pay commission, and the rise once again in April was 1%. So it will be next year before any decision to lift the cap would be effective.

If there is a political will to remove the cap and pay a higher annual increase then it could have been done this year.

The decision was taken to keep it at 1%. Devolution of course means in Scotland we can take different decisions to the UK as has been done with some elements of pay and with other policies.

The Scottish Government decided to continue to protect free prescriptions that was a political choice which was deemed both desirable and affordable.

So too was it a political choice to keep the pay restraint in place for the last seven years.

With NHS recruitment and retention a serious issue the issue of falling real terms pay has to be addressed.

It will become harder to entice people to train to become nurses and even harder to keep for the entirety of their career if they don’t feel adequately rewarded.

Many are understandably thinking is it worth it.

The best way to thank the NHS staff for the work they do is to pay them accordingly that reflects the value of the work they do.