UK nurses threaten to strike over ‘pitiful’ 1% pay offer

UK nurses’ leaders are preparing for possible strike action after denouncing a proposed 1 per cent pay increase, including for staff fighting the coronavirus pandemic, as “pitiful”.

A row erupted on Thursday after the government recommended the figure for nurses and other health service workers in its submission to the independent doctors’ and dentists’ pay review body. The rate of increase could mean pay for clinical professionals dropping in real terms.

On Friday, the governing council of the Royal College of Nursing held an emergency meeting, voting unanimously to form a £35m “industrial action fund”, providing support and compensation for loss of earnings if members went out on strike.

“The RCN will create the UK’s largest union strike fund overnight,” the body said, adding that the next steps would be decided “in conjunction with our members”.

On Thursday, Dame Donna Kinnair, RCN general secretary, accused the government of being “dangerously out of touch with nursing staff, NHS workers and the public”, adding that “nursing” deserved a pay rise of 12.5 per cent.

In its submission to the review body, the health department said the pandemic had “posed an unparalleled challenge to the UK economy and NHS finances”.

The government said it had “announced a pause in public sector pay rises for all workforces, with an exception for employees with basic full-time equivalent salaries of £24,000 or under and for the NHS”. In settling the health department and NHS budgets, “the government assumed a headline pay award of 1 per cent for NHS staff. Anything higher would require re-prioritisation,” it added.

Labour increased the pressure on Friday, highlighting that the pay proposal amounted to a real terms pay cut after inflation.

A Labour spokesperson said: “On multiple occasions Matt Hancock has publicly declared NHS staff should receive the pay they deserve, regularly describing healthcare workers as ‘heroes’.”

Jonathan Ashworth, shadow health secretary, said: “These promises to nurses now lie in tatters.”

A Downing Street spokesman said that the 1 per cent rise was “what is affordable” and was an acknowledgment of staffs’ hard work and commitment during the pandemic.

The lowest paid public sector workers earning the full time equivalent of £24,000 or less would receive a minimum £250 payout, he said. Meanwhile, there had been a pay rise of 12 per cent for newly-qualified nurses and 8 per cent for junior doctors, he added.

The government said it would consider the recommendations from the pay review bodies when they were received in the spring.

“We recognise the impact that Covid had on [NHS workers] and we want to honour this. But at the same time, the pandemic has real consequences. And we’ve done all we can to protect jobs and save lives,” a spokesperson added.

The spokesperson refused to comment on whether the government could give English NHS workers a one-off payment in line with a similar award in Scotland.