Hold on to state workers with tax-free pay and cheap mortgages

I see that the media has fallen into the spin doctors' trap by reporting that staff in the National Health Service are getting a 10% rise. Hello, wake up! The actual rise is only 3.3% per year over three years - which is par for the course, and on a low wage is nothing to write home about.

It is less than the 4% the firemen have been offered. It also requires me to work an extra 1.5 hours a week. So the rise is devalued even more.

At our hospital I'm one of four buyers who provide for 2,000 staff and 650 in-patients as well as 64,000 accident and emergency cases a year and a catchment area of 330,000 people as well as the airport. We buy everything the hospital needs barring pharmaceuticals and food - from air mattresses to zinc dressings. Last year we saved the hospital more than a third of a million pounds.

In the private sector, a junior can expect to earn ?6,000 more than someone with 10 years' experience in the NHS.

In the meantime housing costs are running away. And so are the experienced staff. Eventually with the peanut sized salaries we will end up employing monkeys because we cannot attract the quality staff needed in a modern NHS.

However, there is a solution.

If the chancellor wishes to put more money in NHS pay packets, why not cut tax on public sector wages? This won't increase the wage bill or take money away from services, and it will keep the bean counters happy. Or how about interest- and inflation-free mortgages tied to the employment, similar to the benefit bank staff get from their institutions?