NHS Nurses (RCN) Strike Calendar

• The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) will continue to lobby the UK government for fair pay for nursing in England but the turnout in the statutory strike ballot did not surpass the required 50% threshold to take action.
• More than 100,000 members voted in favour of strike action, around 84% of the total number of people who voted.
• For the ballot to be valid, approximately 140,000 papers needed to be returned, but only 122,000 were received by the closing date, meaning the ballot did not reach the turnout threshold required by the Trade Union Act 2016.
• RCN General Secretary & Chief Executive Pat Cullen said that the fight for fair pay and staffing is far from over, and the voice of nursing will continue to be heard.
• The ballot asked members whether they were prepared to take strike action in response to the NHS pay award for 2022/23 and 2023/24.
• The vote was conducted by post between 23 May and 23 June, and came after members rejected the award in April following six days of historic strike action.
• The legal threshold for strike action applied once to the entire voting membership as opposed to per NHS employer, and the RCN hoped that achieving the mandate would have allowed for an even larger strike than in the past.

Today (2 May) an NHS Staff Council meeting, involving employers and all health unions, confirmed that the pay offer for NHS staff in England was accepted by the majority of unions despite the RCN’s vote to reject. It will therefore be implemented by the UK government.

However, the RCN’s membership voice is loud and clear – you've said it’s not enough and that’s why the RCN voted to reject it formally today and to stay in dispute with the government. We’ve demonstrated that it’s not enough through the weekend’s strike (30 April and 1 May) and will go further in our next ballot to secure a better offer on top of the one that was accepted today.

A judge has ruled that our planned strike action at NHS workplaces across England must be cut short by a day. It will now end 11.59pm on 1 May, as opposed to 8pm on Tuesday 2 May.

“Nursing staff will be angered but not crushed by today’s interim order. It may even make them more determined to vote in next month’s reballot for a further six months of strike action. Nobody wants strikes until Christmas - we should be in the negotiating room, not the courtroom today.

“The government has won this legal battle. But they have lost the support of nursing staff and the public. The most trusted profession has been taken through the courts, by the least trusted people.”

• Health Secretary Steve Barclay has said he plans to "pursue legal action" over the Royal College of Nursing's upcoming strike action.
• The action will see nurses in emergency departments, intensive care and cancer wards down tools for the first time.
• NHS bosses wrote to HEALTH SECRETARY STEVE BARCLAY asking him to check the legality of the strike action, before the mandate expires in May.
• Mr Barclay said: "Following a request from NHS Employers, I have regretfully provided notice of my intent to pursue legal action to ask the courts to declare the Royal College of Nursing's upcoming strike action planned for 30 April to 2 May to be unlawful."
• The government firmly believes in the right to strike, but it is vital that any industrial action is lawful and I have no choice but to take action.
• Nurses who participate in the strike could have their careers in jeopardy.
• RCN general secretary and chief executive, Pat Cullen, branded the move "nakedly political".
• "Bullying nurses and dragging us through the highest courts would not be a good look for the government," a statement from the RCN added.

1. The RCN's consultation on the revised NHS pay offer for nursing staff in England has ended with 46% of eligible members voting to accept the offer, 54% voting to reject the offer, and 61% of eligible members voting.
2. The RCN has sent a letter to the Health Secretary to seek an urgent re-opening of pay talks with the UK government and is organizing a 48-hour strike with no derogations from 8pm on 30 April to 8pm on 2 May.
3. The RCN will also conduct an England-wide statutory ballot to extend the scope and duration of our current mandate for strike action.
4. The RCN wants an improved and formal pay offer from the UK government to postpone strike action.

-The consultative ballot was open between Tuesday 28 February and Monday 20 March 2023. -Just over 50% of eligible members took part in the consultative ballot, with 53.4% voting to accept the offer. -The offer was accepted by a narrow majority, but many members voted to reject the offer because of the nursing workforce crisis. -The Scottish government should live up to its promise to reform Agenda for Change and to make nursing a career of choice once again. -The Nursing and Midwifery taskforce will be established to recommend a series of actions to support the retention and development of existing nursing staff and encourage more people to consider a career in nursing.

The Royal College of Nursing and the Department of Health and Social Care have announced that they will enter "intensive" negotiations in order to settle the ongoing pay dispute. Next week's 48-hour strike is set to be the biggest yet, with half of frontline services affected. The government has offered a 3.5% pay increase, which the RCN has said it is willing to accept.

1. Strikes will take place at 128 NHS employers in England next month.
2. The next strikes will run without pause for 48 hours from the morning of Wednesday 1 March to the morning of Friday 3 March with every single member in England, where there is a mandate to strike, being called to withdraw their labour.
3. Services previously ‘derogated’ will not be to the same extent.
4. Members will now be able to claim £80 a day for strike action taken from March. This will rise to £120 a day for members who have taken strike action for four or more days.
5. Progress has been seen in Scotland and Wales and as a result, strike action is paused here. In Northern Ireland, we have no further strike dates agreed yet. We remain in dispute here and further strikes cannot be ruled out.

• The head of the UK's biggest nursing union has issued a last ditch appeal to Rishi Sunak to agree a compromise over pay in order to prevent the worst strikes in the NHS's history from causing massive disruption to patients across England on Monday.
• In a letter to the prime minister, Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said they would call off strikes planned for Monday and Tuesday if the government offered 3% more (in addition to the 4% already awarded for this year).
• While the union's official demand is for a 19% rise for nurses this year, sources say an offer totalling just 7% would be the basis for talks and an end to strikes.
• Despite the health secretary, Steve Barclay, having fought behind the scenes for more money for nurses, the Treasury and No 10 have put a firm block on any increased offer, saying they will not improve on the recommendations of the NHS Pay Review Body.
• The Treasury is insisting that its number one priority is to drive down inflation and that increasing pay to one public sector union will trigger a rush of demands from others for “special treatment”.

• Nurses will stage two more strikes next month as the row over pay continues, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has announced.
• RCN members will walk out on 6 and 7 February, in an escalation of industrial action, more NHS trusts will take part than during the two previous days of industrial action in December.
• Nurses at 55 NHS trusts in England are scheduled to walk out on Wednesday and Thursday this week, but the February action will expand to cover 73 trusts.
• Some 12 health boards and organizations in Wales will also take part in the two consecutive days of strikes.
• The RCN said it will not take action in Northern Ireland next month, while in Scotland strike action remains paused as negotiations continue.
• The union had initially demanded a pay increase of up to 19% to cover soaring inflation and falls in real term wages over the past decade.
• But earlier this month, RCN boss Pat Cullen said she would be willing to "meet the government halfway" and could accept a pay rise of around 10% to end its ongoing dispute with the government.
• The two days of industrial action by nurses in trusts across England and Wales in December led to the cancellation of thousands of hospital appointments and operations.

• Trade union leaders have said talks with Steve Barclay over NHS pay have been "bitterly disappointing" and an "insult", resulting in planned strikes to go ahead.
• A walkout of ambulance workers will take place on Wednesday.
• The Royal College of Nursing said ministers still have a "distance to travel to avert next week's nurse strike", and physiotherapists will be announcing strike dates later this week.
• Steve Barclay has agreed to consider calls for a one-off payment ahead of a review looking at next year's pay settlement starting in April.
• The Royal College of Nursing described the meeting with Barclay as "bitterly disappointing" and criticized his unwillingness to discuss a 2022-23 pay award.
• Joanne Galbraith-Marten, Director of Employment Relations at the RCN said: "Ministers have a distance to travel to avert next week’s nurse strike”.
• The GMB union said the 11 and 23 January ambulance strikes would go ahead as planned after the talks “fell well short”.
• However, Sara Gorton, head of health at Unison, praised the "change in tone" from the health secretary and said some "progress" had been made on the idea of greater pay for NHS staff.

Nurses across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are set to strike this week after a meeting between the union and the health secretary ended in deadlock. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) condemned the government's refusal to discuss pay and called ministers' stance "belligerent." The strikes are set to take place on Thursday, December 15 and Tuesday, December 20. The Scottish government recently agreed to a 7.5% pay deal with the Unite and Unison unions, calling off their planned strikes. The RCN is currently balloting its members on the offer and will announce the results next week.