NHS nursing staff in England have voted to reject the government’s 5.5% pay award for the current year, in a vote held by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
Two-thirds of the union’s nursing staff members voted against the proposed pay award for 2024/25, with 145,000 members casting their vote in what has been described as a ‘record high’ turnout.
The pay award had been announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves on Monday 29 July and the 5.5% increase expected to be paid next month.
According to the RCN, pay rates for experienced nurses fell by 25% in real terms under the Conservative governments of 2010 and 2024.
In July, the RCN announced plans for ‘urgent representations’ to ensure general practice nurses (GPNs) are given a pay rise that was at least in line with the 5.5% announced for their NHS colleagues.
NHS England has said it expects GP practices to pass on a 6% pay uplift to all practice staff, including GPNs, this year. But concerns have been raised around funding.
The number of nursing students starting university courses this month is 21% lower than three years ago.
Some 23,800 applicants have been accepted onto UK nursing courses for the incoming academic year – down 21% on 2021 and down 1% on 2023.
In a letter to the health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, RCN general secretary and chief executive Professor Nicola Ranger said there has been a ‘fundamental shift in the determination of nursing staff to stand up for themselves, their patients and the NHS they believe in’.
She stressed that the government will have the ‘continued support’ of the union to implement its new health and care agenda, as set out following the Darzi review into the NHS.
However, Professor Ranger added: ‘To raise standards and reform the NHS, you need safe numbers of nursing staff and they need to feel valued.
‘Nursing staff were asked to consider if, after more than a decade of neglect, they thought the pay award was a fair start. This outcome shows their expectations of government are far higher.’
She said: ‘Our members do not yet feel valued and they are looking for urgent action, not rhetorical commitments.
‘Their concerns relate to understaffed shifts, poor patient care and nursing careers trapped at the lowest pay grades – they need to see that the government’s reform agenda will transform their profession as a central part of improving care for the public.’
The RCN said turnout for this vote surpassed the level seen in the last two statutory ballots for industrial action held by the union in 2022 and 2023.
Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour Party conference yesterday, health secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘I can understand, given the relationship they had with the previous government, why nurses feel strongly about pay and also the conditions they’re working in.
‘I think that the nursing profession know that they have in a Labour government a team that they can be proud to work with to do something truly remarkable. That is to take the NHS from the worst crisis in its history, get it back on its feet and make sure it’s fit for the future – a challenge not more great than anything we’ve seen since 1948.’
A version of this story was first published on our sister title Nursing in Practice.
