Nurses to reject strike pay offer
The NHS is bracing for a further wave of nurses' strikes with reports that nurses are set to reject the Government’s pay deal.
The Government should be “ready to negotiate” if nurses reject its most recent pay deal, shadow Treasury minister James Murray has said.
The Labour MP stated: “Let’s see what happens and the results of that ballot. But what we’ve said throughout the dispute with the nurses’ pay, and also in terms of all the other sectors of the economy where industrial action has happened or is threatened, is that the Government needs to be ready to negotiate.
The official results of the ballot will be announced later today by the Royal College of Nursing.
The offer made by the UK government consists of:
A one-off 2% salary uplift, a 4% Covid recovery bonus for the current year, and a permanent 5% pay rise from April 2023.
A ‘no’ vote would mean further strike action, which comes at the same time records have revealed a 3.9% rise in the number of deaths above the 5-year average.
During the week in March when junior doctors went on strike, 22,571 deaths were recorded. Experts say it is not possible to attribute direct responsibility for excess deaths, but that it is ‘plausible’ that the strikes may have contributed to a subsequent rise.