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Ten things you never knew about… NHS pay

1. The lowest paid workers in the NHS are hospital domestics and laundry workers, who start on £2.38 per hour.

2. Most NHS managers receive ‘performance-related pay’ — they can increase their salaries by up to 6% annually by achieving targets set by managers in positions above them.

3. The pay of most NHS staff is negotiated through the national Whitley Council system. John Henry Whitley, after whom the system is named, was Liberal MP for Halifax, and Speaker in the House of Commons from 1921-1928 (the period including the General Strike).

4. Your GP gets £8.75 a year for having you on her/his list — and this rises to £11.60 if you are over 65, or £14.25 if over 75.

5. After three years training, a newly-qualified staff nurse (RGN) starts on a salary of £8,565. A police constable, after three months training, starts on a salary of £10,690.

6. A newly-qualified junior hospital doctor starts on a salary of £10,280 per annum for the basic 40-hour week — but the next 56 hours overtime are paid at one third of the basic hourly rate. About 82% of junior doctors still work over 88 hours a week.

7. Until a few months ago medical secretaries (often in reality doing the work of administrative assistants) were paid the grand sum of £5,484-£6,474 a year. Thanks to recently-concluded deal by NALGO, their pay has leapt dramatically but is still only £6,908 - £8,081.

8. Consultant pay packets are supplemented by a system of bonus payments, called ‘ merit awards’, which are allocated in secret by regional committees to reward ‘clinical excellence’. Women are much less likely to be given merit awards than men.

9. NHS ancillary staff are entitled to a bonus payment of 8.4p per sheep killed or dressed (and 10.8p per calf or pig).

10. Pay accounts for over 75% of the NHS revenue budget — and there are something like 5,000 different combinations of grade and area of work in the NHS.