The nurses’ union is voting on strikes with pay demands in the industry’s biggest vote in more than 100 years.
More than 300,000 members of Britain’s biggest nurses’ union will today begin voting on whether to strike over pay rises, in the biggest vote in the union’s 106-year history.
The Royal College of Nursing announced that it was driven to this decision after years of wage cuts that prevented workers from joining the public National Health System (the so-called NHS) leaving huge staffing gaps in the service.
“We are understaffed, undervalued and underpaidsaid Pat Cullen, general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing.
“For years our profession has been pushing for this, and now patient safety is paying the price,” Cullen said.
As the union explains, what it wants is a 5% wage increase above inflation as union members struggle to meet the needs of the increased cost of living.
The union leader said a below-inflation wage meant workers would not be able to stay in or join the profession and stressed that “patient care is at risk» because of the thousands of vacant nursing jobs in Britain.
A spokesman for Britain’s Department of Health and Welfare expressed the hope that nurses would seriously consider the impact any strike would have on patients.
“We appreciate the hard work of NHS nurses and we work hard to support them,” he said, listing previous pay rises he has made in the industry.
The NHS, which is still recovering from the blow to its services during the coronavirus pandemic, is experiencing the worst understaffing crisis in its history. For the first time there is such a long waiting list for a routine treatment in a public hospital and the waiting time in the emergency and accident management department is increased.
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