HEALTH Ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have launched an unprecedented joint attack on Whitehall about NHS pay negotiations taking place behind their back.

Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon hosted a summit with her counterparts from Cardiff and Belfast yesterday, and they issued a joint communique affirming their support for the principles of an NHS firmly in the public sector. This in itself was an oblique swipe at the competition and privatisation agenda being pursued in England. But in the course of yesterday's meeting officials informed ministers that crucial pay talks had opened in London without the knowledge of the ministers in the devolved administrations.

They immediately agreed to write to Health Secretary Alan Johnson demanding that he call a halt to these negotiations until they were involved. The letter signed by Michael McGimpsey, the Stormont Health Minister and his Cardiff counterpart Edwina Hart, as well as Ms Sturgeon, states: "We are concerned that there has not been an appropriate level of dialogue at Ministerial level about matters with far-reaching consequences for all our administrations. We are clear that the scope for determining any pay settlement, single or multi-year, is a collective Ministerial responsibility across our four administrations.

"It is therefore vital, that we as Health Ministers should be directly involved in agreeing any final outcome. We seek your assurance that any discussions between officials and trade unions tomorrow will be no more than exploratory in nature and that we will engage at a Ministerial level thereafter."

Contracts for key NHS workers are largely the same across the UK. Review bodies based in England make recommendations on pay awards, taking evidence from the devolved nations before announcing their advice.

Usually Westminster gives its response to the recommendations and Scotland follows suit. Recently there have been some differences in the speed at which the Scottish Government and Westminster have decided to implement increases.

There was tension between Whitehall and Edinburgh when Scots ministers agreed to implement a deal for nurses and other NHS staff in full, as recommended by arbitration, but Whitehall insisted on staging the settlement.

This prompted a discussion at the St Andrew's House talks yesterday about the need for the devolved administrations to be kept inside the loop of such negotiations. When the ministers learned from officials that this process was under way again they resolved to draft their letter of complaint. Their agreed statement already included a calculated sideswipe at the trend towards the internal market in the NHS in England, stating: "The Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Government are committed to ensuring that the NHS remains a public service of which our citizens can be justifiably proud."

The three administrations signed up to working together and meeting three times a year. Ms Sturgeon told The Herald: "The meeting was a signal of how the political landscape across the UK had changed dramatically. The view of London no longer applies across the UK."

The Department of Health last night declined to comment.