Nurses to strike in December but unclear which services will be hit
Health workers are now poised to walk out within weeks - in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland - and time is running out to reach a deal, as Emily Morgan reports
Nurses are to hold two days of strike action next month in a dramatic escalation of the pay row raging across the NHS.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) announced its members will stage their first ever national walkout on December 15 and 20.
The RCN said it was calling strikes after the UK government turned down its offer of formal, detailed negotiations as an alternative to industrial action.
The strikes will take place in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The RCN said it will announce which particular NHS employers will be striking next week, when formal notifications are submitted.
In Scotland, the RCN has paused announcing strike action after the government there reopened NHS pay negotiations.
Details will be set out soon on which NHS services will be exempt from the action, as the health service prepares for the likely cancellation of thousands of operations and appointments next month.
Services deemed “life-preserving” and “emergency-type care” will continue on strike days, a nursing chief said, but she declined to give exact detail about which departments would remain staffed when colleagues stage a walk-out.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said there would be “very detailed and worked-through plans” set out about which services would be staffed, with a local strike committee in each organisation that has voted to take industrial action in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
She said the committees will include clinical experts who will “guide and direct all decisions that will be made."
She told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme: “What we will continue to provide is life-preserving services. And those essentially fall into emergency-type care.
“But we will have very, very detailed and worked-through plans that every single nurse that is taking strike action will be expected to adhere to.”
Ms Cullen indicated some cancer services will be exempt, but declined to give detail when asked about scans and checks.
Asked if nurses would be on cancer wards on strike days, she said: “Services such as oncology will be derogated or exempt from any strike action. We have a number of services that we are working through at the minute that will be derogated on the day of strike, and we will release that list soon to employers.”
Pressed on scans or cancer checks such as colonoscopies, she said: “All of the detail is being worked through. Those services that are not considered life-preserving or emergency services will not be derogated. Those that do fall into those particular descriptions will be derogated.”
A previous strike in Northern Ireland saw entire services such as intensive care being exempt from strike action, while others ran a Sunday or Christmas Day service.
Earlier this month, the RCN announced that nursing staff at the majority of NHS employers across the UK had voted to take strike action over pay and patient safety.
The RCN said that despite a pay rise of around £1,400 awarded in the summer, experienced nurses are worse off by 20% in real terms due to successive below-inflation awards since 2010.
Ms Cullen said: “Ministers have had more than two weeks since we confirmed that our members felt such injustice that they would strike for the first time.
“My offer of formal negotiations was declined and, instead, ministers have chosen strike action. They have the power and the means to stop this by opening serious talks that address our dispute.
“Nursing staff have had enough of being taken for granted, enough of low pay and unsafe staffing levels, enough of not being able to give our patients the care they deserve.”
The RCN said the economic argument for paying nursing staff fairly was clear when billions of pounds was being spent on agency staff to plug workforce gaps.
It added that in the last year, 25,000 nursing staff around the UK left the Nursing and Midwifery Council register, with poor pay contributing to staff shortages across the UK, which it warned was affecting patient safety.
There are 47,000 unfilled registered nurse posts in England’s NHS alone, said the RCN.
The College maintains that surveys have shown huge public support for nurses receiving a bigger pay rise, as well as the right to take industrial action.
Other health unions are also balloting workers for industrial action, while ambulance staff in Scotland are due to walk out on Monday.
A ballot among hundreds of thousands of Unison members closes on Friday, and among Unite’s NHS members next week.
Midwives and physiotherapists are also voting on strikes, while a ballot of junior doctors opens in the new year.
Health unions have been warning for months that workers are quitting in huge numbers over pay and low morale, leading to staff shortages in hospitals and other parts of the NHS.
Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said: “I am hugely grateful for the hard work and dedication of nurses and deeply regret some union members will be taking industrial action.
“These are challenging times for everyone and the economic circumstances mean the RCN’s demands, which on current figures are a 19.2% pay rise, costing £10 billion a year, are not affordable.
“We have prioritised the NHS with an extra £6.6 billion, on top of previous record funding, and accepted the recommendations of the independent NHS Pay Review Body to give nurses a fair pay rise of at least £1,400 this year. This means a newly qualified nurse will typically earn over £31,000 a year – with more senior nurses earning much more than that – they will also receive a pension contribution worth 20% of their salary.
“Our priority is keeping patients safe. The NHS has tried and tested plans in place to minimise disruption and ensure emergency services continue to operate.”
Both Mr Barclay and Ms Cullen insisted on Friday that their doors are open for talks.
Labour chairwoman Anneliese Dodds told Sky News the planned nurses’ strike is a sign of “gross negligence” by the Tories but she would not be drawn on whether her own party would meet demands for inflation-busting pay rises.
Other health unions are also balloting workers for industrial action, while ambulance staff in Scotland are due to walk out on Monday.
A ballot among hundreds of thousands of Unison members closes on Friday, and among Unite’s NHS members next week.
Midwives and physiotherapists are also voting on strikes, while a ballot of junior doctors opens in the new year.
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