Angry nurses have invited Health Secretary Frank Dobson to spend a day with them in Bradford in the wake of pay rises they have branded divisive.

Trainee nurses were yesterday awarded increases of 12 per cent, staff nurses 8.2 per cent and other grades 4.7 per cent.

Community nurse Diane Clifford, based at the Edmund Street clinic in Bradford, said she had written an open letter to Mr Dobson which reflected the feelings of dozens of colleagues in the district.

They wanted the long-standing problem of low pay compared to other public sector workers finally addressed.

She had been forced to take on a second job, agency nursing for an extra ten hours a week, to try to make ends meet. It gave her an additional £40 a week to top up her £14,165-a-year salary following 16 years in nursing.

On top of that she was studying for a nursing degree in her spare time to try to improve her prospects and was bringing up three children on her own.

She said the pay rise of 8.2 per cent was still inadequate and should have been 12 per cent for everyone. "It should be across the board - this is going to split nursing down the middle," she said. "We should be brought in line with police, ambulance workers, teachers and fire service.

"I've challenged Frank Dobson to come and spend a day with us.

"We're out on our own and have to go into some horrific places but it's all part of the job. He'd get a shock - I don't think he realises what goes on."

'Kick in the teeth'

Teachers were "disgusted" with their 3.5 per cent pay rise, according to the National Union of Teachers.

The treasurer of the union's Bradford branch, John Howarth, branded the increase a "kick in the teeth", made worse by a larger offer to headteachers. "There will be a lot of resentment in classrooms today," he said. "I don't begrudge headteachers getting a better offer but it's bound to cause ill feeling in schools."

From September, headteachers will receive further rises, following the introduction of a new pay scale, which will see them gain an average 6.5 per cent by the end of the year.

Newly-qualified nurses are to receive an inflation-busting 12 per cent pay rise, but higher qualified staff nurses and ward sisters will get a 4.7 per cent increase. Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust UNISON branch spokesman Keith Greenwood said the award would help attract new people but would upset existing nurses.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.