A LETTER which appeared (BEN, February 5), referred to the fact that there was no mention of a pay award for "auxiliary nurses" in the announcement about nurses and doctors pay increases, which has been recorded in the Official Record (Hansard, 1999, 324, No 30, columns 524-526) as a written answer from The Secretary of State for Health to a Parliamentary Question which I put down.

The reason for this is that pay awards for health care assistants, as they are now called, are not part of the Health Pay Review Bodies recommendations. I have checked with Frank Dobson's Office, and they tell me that an announcement will probably be made towards the end of this month.

Dr Brian Iddon

Member of Parliament for Bolton South East

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