The above-inflation pay rise offered to laboratory staff and other NHS workers is not merely a nicely timed pre-election sweetener, but an admission that low pay for staff is damaging services.
Last March, health minister John Denham told MPs that laboratory staff recruitment was not critical - indeed it was in a "relatively healthy position" compared to other occupations such as nursing. This week Mr Denham admitted that the pay offer would tackle "specific problem areas - especially in NHS laboratories - where we know there are difficulties in recruiting and retaining the right staff".
What has changed ministerial minds is the realisation that without enough properly qualified staff to run an efficiently functioning laboratory service, Labour's ambitious aims to increase NHS quality and productivity will fail.
Laboratory work is crucial to the diagnosis and treatment of a range of illnesses including heart disease, diabetes, Aids, the so-called hospital killer-bug known as MRSA and tuberculosis. The most high profile work is probably cytolgy - the screening process that identifies cancer. The NHS cancer plan's challenging targets to speed up cancer detection will not be met if laboratories are not working at full capacity.
According to work carried out last year by the University of Warwick, NHS vacancy levels for cytologists were running at 17%. The same study found that one in five laboratory posts were unfilled.
Low pay is the main problem affecting recruitment. A trainee NHS pathologist will have a university degree in science, yet will start on just £9,000 - several thousand less than he or she would earn doing a similar job in the private sector. A further two years training is required to earn a qualifying diploma, at which point the salary rises to £13,000. The head of a hospital laboratory with several years' experience earns £32,000.
Many laboratory staff are forced to moonlight to make ends meet; many others have simply quit, knowing that they could earn more money stacking shelves in their local supermarket.
