'It's inevitable': Nursing union boss Pat Cullen to demand double-digit pay rise
Hopes of any imminent end to the nurses' strike are fading, as ITV News Political Correspondent Harry Horton reports
Nursing union leader Pat Cullen has proposed a double-digit pay rise on behalf of her members - a U-turn cabinet member Grant Shapps has called "extraordinary".
Ms Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union, had previously pushed the government for a 19% pay rise. She then advised her members to accept the government's offer of 5% – a deal they rejected despite the number being accepted by 14 other unions.On Sunday, in an interview with The Times, Ms Cullen demanded a double-digit increase for her members.
Speaking to ITV News late on Sunday, Ms Cullen said: "9% has been rejected. That's been consolidated for two years, so it's inevitable that we need to add to that and resolve this dispute for our nursing staff, and make sure that we can fill all of the vacant posts that we've got, and that's at the forefront of every single nurses' mind and every discussion we will have this week."
Calling for a double-digit pay rise is now 'inevitable', says RCN boss Pat Cullen
Elsewhere, she described striking as one of the “hardest decisions” and said fresh negotiations were needed to prevent six more months of action.
“They (ministers) owe that to nursing staff not to push them to have to do another six months of industrial action right up to Christmas,” she said ahead of Sunday’s RCN congress in Brighton, telling Health Secretary Stephen Barclay talks need to “start off in double figures”.
“It’s just not right for the profession,” she said.
“It’s not right for patients. But whose responsibility is it to resolve it? It is this government.”
In response, cabinet minister Grant Shapps told ITV News: "Pat Cullen was in favour of [the 5% offer] and was recommending the acceptance of that deal… I think it is absolutely extraordinary that she has actually come back and said ‘no actually, on second thoughts, don’t accept that'.
"We have a settlement, we had a deal and that’s what we need to get on with."
The Labour Party also did not respond positively to the RCN's demands.
Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told ITV News reopening negotiations with the RCN, the UK's biggest nursing union, "isn't realistic". "I don't think at this stage that's possible given that other unions have already accepted the deal," he said.
RCN members will begin a new ballot for strike action on May 23 after the existing six-month mandate ran out at the start of the month.
Ms Cullen told the Sunday Times: “It’s not so long ago since the Prime Minister went on the media and very publicly said nurses are an exception,” she said when asked why nurses warrant a larger increase than other healthcare workers.
“I would totally agree with him… they should be made an exception because they are exceptional people.”
The mental health nurse, 58, from Co Tyrone, said patient safety was “at the centre of everything that we do”.
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“We will do nothing that will add further risk to the patients that we look after,” she said, saying increased pay would see nurses return to the profession and ease a staffing crisis.
“The truth is that patient safety cannot be guaranteed on any day of the week. How could you guarantee patient safety when you have 47,000 nurses from your workforce every single day and night?”
She warned Prime Minister Rishi Sunak not to take her members lightly.
“Looking back on this pay offer, I may personally have underestimated the members and their sheer determination,” she said.
“I think what I would be saying to the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is ‘Don’t – don’t make that same mistake, don’t underestimate them’.
“Nurses believe it’s their duty and their responsibility because this government is not listening to them on how to bring it (the NHS) back from the brink and the message to the Prime Minister is that they are absolutely not going to blink first in these negotiations.”