STAFF at the QE2 Hospital in WGC will not receive additional pay for working on the Royal wedding bank holiday.

The East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust is among 115 NHS Trusts and PCTs to be “named and shamed” by trade union Unite, in a list of health organisations refusing to pay bank holiday rates to staff on Friday, April 29.

While Trusts in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland pay staff holiday rates according to national NHS agreement Agenda for Change, many trusts in England are refusing to acknowledge Prince William’s marriage to Kate Middleton as a bank holiday.

Under the agreement, NHS staff working during a bank holiday are entitled to an enhancement in pay ranging from double time to time plus 60 per cent.

However, Agenda for Change stipulates staff get just eight bank holidays – the Royal Wedding being an extra official day off for workers.

Unite is arguing that some NHS trusts are using the agreement as a way of “breaking the spirit” of the Government’s goodwill towards Prince William and Kate Middleton’s wedding.

Rachael Maskell, Unite national officer for health, said: “The Government has given the country an extra bank holiday to mark the Royal Wedding but NHS trust chief executives on six figure salaries are refusing to recognise the spirit of the occasion.”

A trust spokeswoman said that staff working during the Royal Wedding would instead be offered an additional day’s leave to their usual holiday allowance.

“As an acute Trust, clearly we need staff working in our hospitals on April 29 in order to maintain patient care,” she said.

“The Agenda for Change contract allow NHS staff eight paid bank holidays every year. While our budgets do not enable us to offer additional payments to our team, we have decided to offer an additional days’ annual leave to anyone working on 29th April in recognition of the royal celebrations.”