Midwives and maternity care assistants (MCAs) working in the NHS in Scotland have voted to accept a two year pay offer of just over 8%.
The RCM’s three-week consultation with its members resulted in 80.1% of respondents voting to accept the offer, with the RCM saying it was ‘a step towards addressing long term pay cuts’. Nearly 20% rejected the Scottish Government offer saying that ‘the offer was not acceptable’.
The offer equates to an uplift of 4.25% for all NHS Agenda for Change (AfC) staff in 2025-26 and 3.75% for 2026/27. This amounts to a cumulative uplift of just over 8.1%
The RCM says the offer meets the above-inflation ask of the RCM’s pay claim and is protected from any rises in inflation. This means that each year of the pay deal will be one percentage point higher than the average CPI inflation rate of that year.
Commenting, the RCM’s Director for Scotland, Jaki Lambert, said:
“I’d like to thank all our members who took the time to share their views on this pay offer. We are your trade union and professional association, and we are led by you and the result of this consultation speaks for itself. We know how hard our members work, day in day out across Scotland striving to deliver the best care they can to women and their families and it’s only fair that work is valued by the Scottish Government. Unfortunately, colleagues, in the rest of the UK remain once again in limbo over their pay awards for this year, so in a way we are relived that our members in Scotland will see their pay increases sooner rather than later.”
The RCM is reminding members that the pay offer for 2026-27 is calculated on the full, in-year benefit of the reduced working week (36-hour standard working week) for all staff covered by the AfC agreement which the RCM says will be beneficial for staff working on an hourly rate basis. The 2025-26 offer will be calculated on a 37-hour working week.
The pay increase will be backdated to 1 April, the day it was due, and the RCM hopes members will receive their backdated uplift by the end of June with backdated pay in July.
For members wondering what this pay increase will look like for them they can visit the Scotland pay hub on the RCM’s website and view the new NHS Scotland pay scales here
Jaki added:
“What we want to see now is this uplift in our members pockets as soon as possible. So, we are calling on the Scottish Government to swiftly implement this pay deal for our hardworking members without delay. There are also elements of this year’s pay claim including, pay modernisation that have not been addressed in this pay deal, rest assured the RCM will be pushing for negotiation and movement on those as well over the coming months and we will keep members updated on our progress.”
The RCM says its next steps will be to meet with the collective staff side of the Scottish Terms and Conditions Committee (STAC). They will them collate all the Scottish NHS health unions’ consultation results. Following this they will then inform the Scottish Government of the overall outcome on the 8.1% offer.
ENDS
