Nurses are calling for partial pay restoration after a decade of real-terms pay cuts.
The Health Secretary has said that nurses’ pay demands are not “reasonable or affordable”.
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Steve Barclay took to Twitter following an announcement by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) that a large number of its members voted for strike action.
Nursing staff in 176 different NHS organisations voted to take strike action on Wednesday following over a decade of below-inflation pay rises.
The average experienced frontline nurse is around £10,000 a year worse off in real terms now than in 2008 – the equivalent of cutting their salary by a third.
Mr Barclay has been notoriously quiet about potential strike action from nursing staff but now appears to have broken his silence.
Disappointing.
Mr Barclay said, “It is disappointing some RCN members voted for industrial action. We accepted the recommendations of the independent NHS Pay Review Body in full and have given over one million NHS workers a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year on top of a 3% rise last year.”
“I’m hugely grateful for the hard work and dedication of NHS staff, including nurses. That’s why supporting the NHS and social care workforce to care for patients is one of my priorities, and we have already recruited 30,000 of the 50,000 more nurses we promised by 2024.”
“But union demands for a 17.6% pay settlement are around three times what millions of people outside the public sector will typically receive and simply aren’t reasonable or affordable. Labour have also refused to back this.”
Mr Barclay also attempted to turn the public on nurses by warning, “some patients will have their treatment delayed”.
