Government must stand firm on nurses' strike threat

The Royal College of Nursing has warned its members may vote to go out on strike once more later in the year after they voted 9-1 to reject the Government's pay rise of 3.6 per cent.

Given that resident doctors have just already been on strike in protest against a 5.4 per cent pay rise - and that on the back of a last year's 22 per cent increase, it is perhaps hardly surprising that the nurses feel a little disgruntled. After all, if the doctors, who earn considerably more, are being offered 5.4 per cent - and aren't happy with it - why should the nurses settle for less?

RCN leader Prof Nicola Ranger said the nurses felt 'deeply undervalued', and called for a rethink on the outdated banding system.

Prof Ranger may indeed be right on the last point, but she would also do well to heed the words of a spokesman for the Department for Health and Social Care, who pointed out that the Government had awarded above-inflation pay rises for two years in a row, and that the pay award was indeed fair.

The problem for Health Secretary Wes Streeting is that, having awarded hefty pay rises to both doctors and railway workers to end industrial action last year, the unions have concluded that strike action works and are now demanding more. If he is to avoid strike action becoming an annual occurrence, it is vital that Mr Streeting stands his ground with both the doctors and the nurses.

The latest pay offer takes a nurse's starting salary to more than £31,000 a year, which is broadly in line with the starting salary for many other graduate professions. 

Given that the latest pay award represents a real-terms increase on the one they voted to accept last year, many private-sector workers will struggle to understand why the nurses feel so undervalued - particularly given that they enjoy additional incremental pay rises that others can only dream of.

Nurses do a fundamentally important job and enjoy great goodwill from the public, but they would be unwise to take that for granted. Unnecessary strike action will not only cause disruption for patients and put lives at risk, it will also cost the NHS millions of pounds which could be invested in health care - and, indeed, future pay rises.

Let's hope common sense prevails on all sides.