Health unions will not submit joint evidence to the NHS pay review body about the rise staff should get in 2023-24, in a move that threatens the system by which most health service pay is decided. Unions representing more than 1 million NHS staff announced on Wednesday that they would not share their views on what next year’s uplift should be while the dispute over this year’s uplift was ongoing. The health secretary Steve Barclay’s refusal to increase his £1,400-a-head pay offer to health service personnel for 2022-23 had made it “impossible” to start talking about next year’s deal, they said. The unions’ move is a further escalation of their bitter dispute with the government over pay, which led to ambulance staff across England and Wales staging their second stoppage on Wednesday. The 14 unions want to hold direct talks with ministers about pay for this year and next year, instead of sending joint evidence on their behalf to the NHS pay review body (PRB), an advisory body which then recommends to the government what the size of the annual increase should be. Their withdrawal from the process of deciding next year’s pay comes amid mounting union anger at the role of the pay review body and fact that the government chooses its eight members and sets a ceiling on how big a rise it can recommend. Barclay has insisted repeatedly for weeks that he cannot offer NHS staff more than the £1,400 the pay review body recommended for 2022 to 2023, even though inflation into double figures has soared since it proposed that sum, partly as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The pay review body process doesn’t fit the current context”, said Sara Gorton, the head of health at Unison and chair of the NHS group representing the 14 unions. “The NHS staffing crisis is so acute only prompt action on pay – both for this and the next financial year – can start to turn things around.” The 14 unions represent nurses, ambulance staff, midwives, physiotherapists, porters and other NHS personnel – everyone except doctors and dentists, whose pay is analysed by a separate pay review body. Some unions claim the pay review body is no longer fit for purpose and should be scrapped. “The NHS pay review body is long past its sell-by date. It’s no longer independent of government and it doesn’t have powers to make major decisions about pay. So what is the point of it?”, said Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the union Unite. “The fact of the matter is the NHS PRB has presided over more than a decade of real wage cuts for almost all NHS staff. It has been a smokescreen which has allowed government to drive the NHS to the point of collapse.” Unite added: “Years of this [NHS pay review] system are responsible for the pay crisis engulfing the NHS and the consequent staff exodus that has followed.” The NHS in England has about 133,000 vacancies for doctors, nurses and other staff, official figures show. Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, said last month that all eight public sector pay review bodies were “in danger of being brought into disrepute” by their refusal to recommend rises more in line with rampant inflation and so inflicting real-terms pay cuts on workers. Barclay has already told the PRB that the biggest rise the NHS in England can afford to give staff next year is 2%, though a 1% contingency may make that 3%. However, some health unions may still submit evidence individually to the PRB about the increase they think frontline staff should get in 2023-24. If so, that may lessen the impact of Wednesday’s decision. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “The pay review bodies are independent and they consider a range of evidence to make their recommendations, including from trade unions, the NHS and government. “The health and social care secretary has been clear he wants to have an honest conversation with unions about what is affordable for the 2023-24 pay settlement in the current economic context.”