It comes after nurses at 176 NHS organisations across England voted to take strike action.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been told he has five days to open “formal, detailed negotiations”, or nurses will announce their first strike dates.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has today put Ministers on notice, warning it will announce strike dates for December unless the Government comes to the negotiating table.
It comes after nurses at 176 NHS organisations across England voted to take strike action after a decade of real-terms pay cuts. A full list of NHS employers who have voted to strike is available here.
In a letter to the health secretary following the Autumn Statement, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Pat Cullen said the Chancellor demonstrated that “the government remains unprepared to give my members the support they need at work and at home”.
Strike action.
Cullen said that recent meetings with Steve Barclay, while cordial in tone, had not resolved the issues at the heart of the proposed strike action.
In the letter, she added: “It is with regret that I write to say that unless our next meeting is formal pay negotiations, beginning within the next 5 days, we will be announcing the dates and locations of our December strike action.”
The RCN’s Fair Pay for Nursing campaign is calling for a pay rise of 5% above inflation (measured by RPI).
Despite this year’s pay award, experienced nurses are worse off by 20% due to successive below-inflation awards since 2010.
In her letter, Cullen said her recent meetings with Mr Barclay were welcome, but added that “I must not let my members nor the public confuse these meetings for serious discussions on the issues of NHS pay and patient safety”.
She said: “You have again asked to meet in the coming days and for this third occasion I must be clearer in my expectation.
Formal, detailed negotiations.
Ms Cullen went on to warn, “There is only value in meeting if you wish to discuss – in formal, detailed negotiations – the issues that have caused our members to vote for strike action.
“It is now more than a week since we announced our ballot outcome and your department has dedicated more time to publicly criticising our members’ expectations than finding common ground and a satisfactory conclusion.
“I also point out that this stands in contrast to the approach taken by governments and executives in other parts of the United Kingdom.”
