Nurses at the Royal College of Nursing union have rejected the government’s pay offer in England and will now go on strike over the first May Bank holiday. The 48-hour walkout from 8pm on 30 April to 8pm on 2 May will involve NHS nurses in emergency departments, intensive care, cancer, and other wards.
This is a significant development as it is the first time that critical care services, such as intensive care, will be included in the strike.
The pay offer being rejected by nurses is a 5% pay rise for 2023/24, and an extra one-off lump sum of at least £1,655 to top up the past year’s salary. The RCN says that this is simply not enough and the government needs to increase what has already been offered.
The Unison union, which includes some nurses, ambulance crews, and hospital porters, have accepted the same pay offer. On the other hand, 54% of the RCN union members voted to reject the pay offer, while 46% voted to accept it. This shows a significant split within the nursing community on the issue of pay.
The strike action comes at a time when the NHS junior doctors in England are currently staging a four-day walkout over pay, ending on 0700 Saturday. The strike by nurses is likely to cause severe disruption over a bank holiday weekend.
The RCN general secretary and chief executive Pat Cullen has said that the crisis in health and care services cannot be addressed without significant action that addresses urgent recruitment and retention issues and nursing pay to bring this dispute to a close urgently. Until there is a significantly improved offer, the nurses are forced back to the picket line.
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