Health secretary Alan Milburn has announced a new pay deal for nurses with a rise only marginally above inflation.

In a written answer on Monday, Milburn announced that he will give £1,000 to more senior nurses - but many of Britain's 450,000 will get a raise of 3.7 per cent. Doctors will get a rise of 3.9 per cent. Staff in London will get a rise of between six and nine per cent in a bid to attract new people to work in the capital.

Milburn, making the announcement earlier than expected, said he believed the deal was fair. "We are determined to do right by frontline NHS staff. Year on year we are making steady progress on increasing their numbers and improving pay rates. These fair and affordable pay rises will help increase still further the numbers of trained, qualified staff working in the NHS."

Some within the NHS have said the government should do more to encourage people back into the NHS. The Royal College of Nursing general secretary, Christine Hancock, said: "It looks as if this award will be good news for ward sisters, specialist clinical nurses and community nurses, such as district nurses, who have born the brunt of pressures on the health service and who are key to modernising the National Health Service.

"But many staff nurses will be disappointed by a basic uplift of 3.7 per cent as alone it won't bring fast progress in encouraging nurses back to the health service. The cost of living supplements will boost increases in certain areas, although we will have to see what overall impact these payments have on attracting and keeping nurses. We will watch closely to see how these extra payments work in practice - they may simply shift the problem of nurse shortages from area to area.

"It is now doubly important that the government makes sure there is real action on initiatives that will make tangible improvements to nurses' working lives - such as better access to affordable childcare, flexible working arrangements and help with housing costs," Hancock said.