Pay freezes and starting salary?

[pharmacist_interrupted]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick question about the pay freezes and starting pay for band 6 pharmacists. I live in Scotland so not sure if it's the same here. I've been qualified for over 5 years and worked in community all that time. I trained in community also. My question is, if I took a band 6 hospital position, would I be going in at the lowest pay point? And is there still a pay freeze in the NHS? If so, would I be on that starting salary for the forseeable future?

[gigeordie]

The pay is frozen at the moment until 2013 (I think). However if you interview well and have something about you that the hospital really want, they may consider you starting you higher up the band to encourage you to accept the job.

[Pharmguru]

what pay freeze is this?

do you not get money change from going into the bands or is it the yearly increments?

[pharmacist_interrupted]

I believe anyone earning over £21k in the NHS has had their pay frozen. So I'm guessing you can't move up the pay points just now, so whatever the starting salary is, if it's over that you'll be earning the same for a while.

[Deadpan]

The pay freeze only refers to the annual 1st April (or whenever they bother to get it sorted) inflation-based pay rise. Progression through the pay scale is not affected. This would be ridiculously unjust and everybody would leave the NHS.