NURSES and other NHS care staff took part in a rally and march yesterday to highlight their disappointment after the government elected to offer almost a million public sector workers, including doctors and dentists an above-inflation increase, but left out the grassroots staff.

Nurses and support workers have described the omission as a snub and say they feel undervalued and demoralised.

The NHS staff are currently in the last year of a pay deal agreed in 2018. But unions want the UK government to bring the next review forward to this year to show its appreciation for the response of NHS staff to the pandemic.

The current agreement is said this year to have seen the average nurse receiving an average increase of 4.4%.

However, nurses in the higher bracket of their pay grade said the rise is worth "pennies" each month.

"It's not just about what happened during the pandemic, we've been chronically underfunded for years," said clinical nurse specialist Amy Mainwaring. "I saw an advert for a litter picker job in London offering a higher salary than me and yet there are nurses who are having to access food banks. It's so wrong."

She said 540 NHS staff died from coronavirus and many nurses "have lost colleagues".

"So when we're ignored from the pay rise, nurses and staff felt it was time to stop standing quietly by. I just hope ministers are listening,"

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The rally took place at Basildon and Thurrock Hospital and afterward participants marched into Basildon town centre.