On a picket line outside St. Thomas Hospital on February 6, 2023, NHS nurses from the Royal College of Nursing in London, United Kingdom, demand safe staffing levels, just pay, and favourable working conditions.
When a record number of healthcare workers walk out in support of today’s strike, which will be the largest industrial action by that group, pressure is being added to the National Health Service at a time when it already faces many challenges.
The Royal College of Nursing’s NHS nurses were scheduled to go on three days of strike action due to their subpar pay and deteriorating working conditions.
It would have involved nursing staff working in emergency departments, intensive care units, cancer care and other services previously excluded.
But after weeks of dodging talks, the RCN and healthcare officials said the government has agreed to ‘enter a process of intensive talks’.
Union bosses will meet with meet Health Secretary Steve Barclay tomorrow to hash out a ‘fair and reasonable settlement’.
A joint statement from the RCN and the Department of Health and Social Care today said: ‘The Government and Royal College of Nursing have agreed to enter a process of intensive talks.
‘Both sides are committed to finding a fair and reasonable settlement that recognises the vital role that nurses and nursing play in the National Health Service and the wider economic pressures facing the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister’s priority to halve inflation.
‘The talks will focus on pay, terms and conditions, and productivity-enhancing reforms.
‘The Health Secretary will meet with the Royal College of Nursing on Wednesday to begin talks. The Royal College of Nursing will pause strike action during these talks.’
It is a major breakthrough in the months-long scuffle between the union and the government, with the RCN chief Pat Cullen having claimed last week there had been ‘no communication’ with Barclay during the past month.
For the first time in the 74-year history of the NHS, nurses went on strike last December amid ballooning inflation, staff shortages and a growing backlog.
The NHS, an institution deeply revered by the British public and politicians, is creaking at the seams, union members say.
The earnings of an experienced nurse have fallen in real terms by at least 20% since 2010 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the RCN found.
So nurses up and down the UK joined picket lines demanding a pay rise of 19%.
The increase is above the current rate of inflation but the union feels is vital after years of slow wage growth and an especially difficult cost-of-living crisis.
But the industrial action hasn’t just been about pay. Nurses hoped for better working conditions they say will help retain staff and improve patient care.
The RCN has said the NHS is at near breaking point, with several other healthcare professionals, such as ambulance workers, also resorting to strike action.
The government, however, has said such a pay rise is ‘unaffordable’.
Instead, government officials feel that pay should be determined by NHS review bodies, which set a pay increase last summer well below the union’s demand.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has insisted that he does not have a ‘magic wand’ to top up wages.
Nurses are not alone in striking, however. Doctors, rail workers, civil servants, bus drivers, barristers, refuse collectors, university academics, museum employees bottling plant staff and more have all taken to industrial action in the last few months.