The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is balloting all of its UK members to strike for the first time in its 106-year history.
The nurses’ union is protesting the Government’s decision to award NHS staff with an average 5 per cent pay increase – well below inflation.
It is pushing for a rise of 5 per cent above inflation, which currently sits at 10.1 per cent.
The current offer amounts to a real-terms pay cut, and the RCN is calling on its 300,000 members to walk out, with the result of the ballot due next month.
Recent research by theHealth Foundationthink-tank found nurses’ average basic pay fell by 5 per cent in real terms between 2011 and 2021.
The union has said the strike would affect non-urgent care, but not emergency care.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said in a message to members: “This is a once in a generation chance to improve your pay and combat the staff shortages that put patients at risk. Governments have repeatedly neglected the NHS and the value of nursing. We can change this if together we say ‘enough is enough’.
“Record numbers are feeling no alternative but to quit and patients pay a heavy price. We are doing this for them too.”
How much do nurses get paid?
NHS pay is operated in a banding system that was introduced in 2004.
A newly-qualified nurse starts in Band 5 and will earn £27,055 a year in England, or slightly more in London. Most nurses operate in Bands 5 and 6, while Band 7 and above tend to be management positions.
The RCN has estimated that an average NHS nurse’s pay is around £34,000.
Here is the current banding scale:
- Band 5 – £27,055 to £32,934
- Band 6 – £33,706 to £40,588
- Band 7 – £41,659 to £47,672
Will nurses go on strike?
If nurses follow the RCN’s ballot then they will go on strike.
Ms Cullen told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Nurses will do nothing to add to the risk that patients are facing every single day as a consequence of not having those nurses in the system to look after them.
“I had the privilege to lead the first nurses’ strike in Northern Ireland in 103 years. That was done very safely, very effectively and totally professionally, and that put no patient at further risk. We had very clear protocols about organising it. There is no thing in our profession where we down tools and walk off wards or leave our patients in the community.
“We continue to provide critical services throughout any strike.”
The RCN ballot will close on 2 November.
At least 50 per cent of all members balloted in England and Scotland must vote, and 40 per cent of them must choose to strike in order for the walkout to be legal.
