Spain commits to upgrading nurses to Group A1 by 2024

Nurses: A1 commitment for 2024

About 500 nurses gathered on Friday, February 2, 2024, outside the Ministry of Health in Madrid. They demanded a specific change: moving from functional group A2 to A1. On that same day, Minister Mónica García met with Catalonia’s Health Councilor, Manel Balcells, resulting in the headline that peine the issue. "We have the commitment to reclassify and adjust healthcare categories in 2024," Balcells announced. With this assurance, the Catalan union Nurses of Catalonia canceled a strike ongoing since December 12.

How much does a nurse’s salary increase moving from group A2 to A1?

In theory, the jump has numbers. A professional in sub-group A2 earns a base salary of 14,992.66 euros gross per year; one in A1 earns 17,049.72. Monthly figures are 1,113.98 euros versus 1,288.31, always gross and before seniority bonuses and supplements. Smaller amounts also change, not all upward: the extra payment drops from 812.45 to 795 euros, while the seniority bonus rises from 40.44 to 49.59, and the amount per seniority in June and December payments goes from 29.48 to 30.61.

This theoretical amount differs greatly from what a nurse with years of service actually receives. Professional career, shift, and on-call supplements swell the paycheck to extremes that the base salary hides. The complete breakdown, item by item, presents a very different picture than official tables.

Why Nursing Has Demanded A1 for a Decade

The demand is not new. Since 2008, Nursing has been a four-year university degree with 240 credits, the same as other careers. However, upon obtaining a position in the Administration, nurses still enter through sub-group A2, reserved for diploma holders. The Ministry’s proposal classifies civil servants according to MECES levels, the Spanish framework of qualifications aligned with the European one, i.e., by the university credits required to access the post. It also opens the door for personnel classified as A2 to apply for management positions.

The meeting on February 2 included the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla, and nurse Alda Recas. The union’s assessment was one of contained satisfaction: the commitment is recognized, but it is noted that they have been hearing promises for years. Octavio Rodríguez, from the Catalan Nurses Union, summarized the stance: the Ministry knows what it wants to do, but they think it will "keep pestering" until they see it executed.

The grievance carrying the Spanish civil service system

The case reveals a broader anomaly. Teaching is A2 with a four-year degree; teachers share the sub-group with qualifications that the Administration classifies below. The mix of diplomas and degrees reconverted into degrees after the Bologna Plan left an unequal map: there are four-year careers in A2 and others in A1 without the criterion being clear. Some analysis suggests that changing Nursing opens the door to reviewing the entire catalog; against this weighs that reclassifying one group without touching the rest breaks the system’s logic.

Access also shows a striking difference. Technical IT bodies are filled through pure opposition exams, while Nursing posts come through a competition-opposition process: without prior interim years, the post does not come. Professional career, therefore, starts much earlier than the group change.

Who pays for the improvement and what happens with doctors?

The economic commitment comes without a closed figure. From the private sector comes a recurrent argument: every increase in public employment is paid for by taxes from those who do not enjoy that stability. The response from supporters is that public health supports the entire country and that the alternative is a system with exhausted or emigrated professionals.

Less enthusiastic analyses point out the risk of internal grievance. If Nursing moves up a group, doctors—currently in A1—will demand their own tier to maintain distance, and technical groups will claim the same rule of MECES credits. The struggle, in that scenario, does not end with nurses.

Will patient care improve with the increase?

This is the dividing question. One current argues that improving classification retains talent and recognizes increasing responsibility, including on-calls. Another maintains that an administrative label change does not alter care by itself, and that the problem of public health is not solved by reassigning categories. Available data do not allow settling it. What is known is that the reclassification affects the entire Nursing collective and that its cost will fall on public coffers.

In the end, the number that disconcerts is not the base salary. A participant in the debate places his mother, a nurse with eleven seniority bonuses and Level IV of professional career, at almost 58,000 euros annually in 2023. With those real incomes, the question is no longer how much A1 increases, but how much of the public paycheck remains outside the published tables.