Nurses threaten strikes in vote on ‘grotesque' pay deal
Nurses will consider strike action as a vote on the profession's 'grotesque' 3.6 per cent pay rise opens.
Almost 350,000 nurses across the UK will vote on whether to accept or reject the pay award for 2025-26 from Monday.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said it was the biggest single vote of the profession ever launched in the UK.
It comes as the Government faces a summer of discontent with doctors already balloting to strike, and teachers and airport staff threatening disruption.
Last month, the Government said NHS staff on the agenda for change banding system, which includes nurses, would receive a pay uplift of 3.6 per cent this year, after accepting the recommendation of the pay review body.
But the profession was incensed after resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, were told they would be getting 5.4 per cent on average on top of the 22 per cent rise they received last year.
The RCN said the award for nurses was 'grotesque' and that the pay rise would be 'entirely swallowed up by inflation'.
It said the outcome of the vote would inform its next steps, which could include a ballot to strike.
Doctors, teachers, prison officers and the armed forces will all be receiving a bigger increase.
The vote will include RCN members working in the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not Scotland, where nurses accepted an eight per cent rise over two years to ensure they remain the best paid in the UK.
Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN general secretary, will tell an international conference in Helsinki, Finland, that she is 'with nurses from around the world today asking why it is our ministers in the UK who have once again put nursing at the back of the queue when it comes to pay'.
'Nursing is an incredible career, but despite being the most valued profession by the public we continue to be weighted to the bottom of the NHS pay scale and are set to receive one of the lowest pay awards,' she said.
'It is time to show that nurses are valued and, from today, hundreds of thousands of nursing staff working in the NHS will give their verdict on whether 3.6 per cent is enough.'
The RCN said nurses in England had faced more than a decade of pay erosion since 2010-11, with pay down by a quarter in real terms.
As a result, there are more than 26,000 unfilled nursing posts, while student recruitment has 'collapsed' and the number quitting is 'skyrocketing', said the Royal College.
Nurses went on strike for the first time in NHS history over the winter of 2022-23, staging four separate two-day walkouts.
Under strike rules, unions are required to re-ballot members to continue striking every six months. But the RCN did not secure the required turnout of more than 50 per cent of its members, and so lost its mandate to continue striking in 2023 despite remaining in an official dispute with the Government.
Its members previously voted to reject the 5.5 per cent pay award for 2024-25 last year, as well as the five per cent in 2023-24 the year before, which also came with a one-off payment of at least £1,655, despite other unions accepting it.
Resident doctors are currently balloting to strike again after demanding the 5.4 per cent increase awarded to them for this financial year is nearer to 30 per cent. The ballot closes on July 7, 2025.
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