NHS nurses’ strike dates announced: Staff to walk out for two days in December in dispute over pay
NHS nurses are to strike for two days in December in a dispute over pay and patient safety.
Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) will take industrial action on 15 and 20 December across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
In Scotland, industrial action is being paused while pay negotiations continue.
The strike ballot among more than 300,000 members of the RCN was the biggest in the union’s 106-year history.
The union has demanded its members receive a pay rise of at least 17%, adding that years of low pay is “pushing nursing staff out of the profession and putting patient care at risk”.
Nurses had given the government a deadline to open “detailed negotiations” and threatened to announce strike dates for December.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said: “My offer of formal negotiations was declined and instead ministers have chosen strike action.
“Nursing staff have had enough of being taken for granted, enough of low pay and unsafe staffing levels, enough of not being able to give our patients the care they deserve.”
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‘Enough is enough’ – Nursing union
Pay demand ‘not affordable’
The health secretary praised the hard work and dedication of nurses, and expressed his deep regret that some will be taking industrial action.
Steve Barclay said: “These are challenging times for everyone and the economic circumstances mean the RCN’s demands, which on current figures are a 19.2% pay rise, costing £10bn a year, are not affordable.”
The RCN’s demanding an increase based on the RPI inflation rate (which was 14.2% in October) plus 5%.
In England and Wales, NHS staff have seen an average rise of 4.75% this year, in Scotland the offer was a flat rate of just over £2,200, while in Northern Ireland no pay award can be approved without an Executive in place.
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UK strikes: What does the data show?
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt – who previously held the post of health secretary – said he has a “great deal of sympathy” for nurses struggling with the cost of living, but insists the best way to help them is to bring inflation down.
Data from the London School of Economics found salaries of experienced nurses have declined by 20% in real terms over the last 10 years. This means nurses are effectively working one day a week for free.
That mirrors recent research by the health charity Nuffield Trust, which said NHS staff pay remained lower in real terms in 2021/22 than it was in 2010/11.
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‘Great deal of sympathy for nurses’
‘Something needs to change’
RCN director Patricia Marquis told Sky News nursing pay has fallen behind during the last decade and the action was nurses telling ministers “something needs to change”.
“Our members are sending a very loud message to the government that things need to change for nurses in their NHS,” she said.
“We got a pay award this year of £1,400 which may sound a lot to people, but actually nursing pay has fallen behind over the last 10 years by around the rate of inflation plus 5% – so our members are hugely disappointed that they didn’t get anywhere near what they needed to take their salaries back to the level they were 10 years ago.
“What is really worrying them is the impact that’s having on patient care. There aren’t enough nurses and nursing staff to deliver the care that’s needed. So patients are waiting too long for their operations, they are waiting for ambulances and they are waiting for beds, and it just is not safe for patients any longer, and nurses are saying ‘we have had enough, we can’t continue, something needs to change’.”
NHS vacancies at record high
Nursing vacancies hit a record 47,000 in England between April and June, a rise of a fifth on the year before.
The RCN says 25,000 nursing staff in the UK left the Nursing and Midwifery Council register in the last year.
This summer, MPs from the cross-party Health and Social Care Committee described the staffing issues as “the greatest workforce crisis” in the history of the NHS.
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Rishi Sunak says 19% pay rise ‘obviously unaffordable’.
The union blames not just pay, but also heavy workloads.
The RCN is not the only health union threatening strike action.
A ballot among Unison members closes on Friday, and among Unite’s NHS members next week.
Midwives and physiotherapists are also voting on taking action, and junior doctors will be balloted in the new year.
Meanwhile, ambulance staff in Scotland are due to walk out on Monday.
Labour blames Tory ‘negligence‘
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting blamed the government for failing to negotiate with the RCN.
He said: “Patients already can’t get treated on time, strike action is the last thing they need, yet the government is letting this happen. Patients will never forgive the Conservatives for this negligence.”
What about the safety of patients?
Unlike strikes in other sectors, some nurses will be exempt from taking part in strike action – called “derogations” – to maintain safe staffing levels and ensure patients are not harmed.
An RCN spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring life-preserving service is in place and will be confirming derogations with individual employers in due course.”
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Nurses could follow the example set in Northern Ireland in 2019, when staff went on strike.
The RCN has described on its website how staffing was managed on three levels:
• complete derogation, with an entire service being staffed like intensive care units
• limited to a Sunday service or Christmas Day service
• limited to a night duty model
Could agency workers replace striking nurses?
The RCN advice is clear: “If you’re an agency worker allocated to work at an NHS organisation on a day of strike action, we at the RCN expect that you do not cover that shift.
“You could ask your agency to find you alternative work at an organisation that is not taking strike action, for example a private hospital or care home.”
That doesn’t mean agency staff have to follow the advice, though – and some shifts can be lucrative.
A recent freedom of information request by Labour showed one in three NHS trusts have paid an agency more than £1,000 for a single shift last year, and one in six trusts paid more than £2,000.
A man has been remanded into custody charged with child cruelty offences after allegedly lacing sweets with sedatives.
Jon Ruben, 76, of Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, appeared at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Saturday after youngsters fell ill at a summer camp in Stathern, Leicestershire.
He has been charged with three counts of wilfully assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting, abandoning or exposing children in a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health.
The charges relate to three boys at the camp between 25-29 July.
The scene in Stathern, Leicestershire. Pic: PA
Ruben spoke only to confirm his name, age and address.
Police received a report of children feeling unwell at a camp being held at Stathern Lodge, near Melton in Leicestershire, last Sunday.
Officers said paramedics attended the scene and eight boys – aged between eight and 11 – were taken to hospital as a precaution, as was an adult. They have since been discharged.
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Police said the “owners and operators of Stathern Lodge are independent from those people who use or hire the lodge and are not connected to the incident”.
Leicestershire Police has referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, after officers initially reported the incident as having happened on Monday, only to later amend it to Sunday.
It is still unclear when officers responded and whether that is why the watchdog referral has been made.
Ruben will next appear at Leicester Crown Court on 29 August.
A bishop who interrupted a church concert in his dressing gown – and told singers to “leave his house” – has formally apologised to the choir.
Jonathan Baker was filmed standing barefoot at a microphone as he criticised performers for making a “terrible racket” at St Andrew’s Church in central London.
Addressing the City Academy Voices choir directly, the bishop of Fulham said: “I write to apologise for the distress and offence I caused in bringing the concert to a premature end.
“This should not have happened … I also apologise for remarks which were made in haste, and which have understandably caused hurt and distress.”
The bishop, in his dressing gown, gave the choir a dressing down
Mr Baker had demanded for the performance to stop because it was 10pm – and says he didn’t realise the choir had booked the church until 11pm.
In the statement obtained by Sky News, he added: “I have lived here on site at St Andrew’s for 10 years, for much of which City Academy has rehearsed and performed here.
“You have been, and continue to be, welcome – and I hope that you will be able to continue the relationship with us.
“I can give you every assurance that the events of Friday evening will not recur, and I apologise again to performers (especially those unable to perform at the end of the evening) and the audience alike.”
The choir performed their last song
The choir was performing to a 300-strong audience in Holborn when the lights were suddenly turned off, with Mr Baker declaring the concert was “over”.
A church employee then asked the crowd to leave quietly and for the musicians to step down from the stage, attracting boos from the audience.
The choir went on to perform one last song, an A cappella version of ABBA’s Dancing Queen, before bringing their show to a close.
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Jonathan Baker has apologised
One member of the audience, who was attending with his 10-year-old daughter, told Sky News he initially thought the interruption was a staged joke.
Benedict Collins had told Sky News: “This work deserves respect, not to be disparaged as a ‘terrible racket’. The people here had put their heart and soul into it.
“The bishop cut them off in midstream, preventing soloists who had worked their hardest from singing – and preventing the audience, which included people of all ages, from enjoying it to the end.”
The choir told Sky News it was “upsetting” that they were unable to finish their show as planned, but “hold no hard feelings and wish the bishop well”.
A spokesperson added: “If anyone is thinking of joining one of our choirs, the City Academy Voices rehearse on Mondays in central London. Dressing gowns optional.”
The Online Safety Act is putting free speech at risk and needs significant adjustments, Elon Musk’s social network X has warned.
New rules that came into force last week require platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X – as well as sites hosting pornography – to bring in measures to prove that someone using them is over the age of 18.
The Online Safety Act requires sites to protect children and to remove illegal content, but critics have said that the rules have been implemented too broadly, resulting in the censorship of legal content.
X has warned the act’s laudable intentions were “at risk of being overshadowed by the breadth of its regulatory reach”.
It said: “When lawmakers approved these measures, they made a conscientious decision to increase censorship in the name of ‘online safety’.
“It is fair to ask if UK citizens were equally aware of the trade-off being made.”
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What are the new online rules?
X claims the timetable for platforms to meet mandatory measures had been unnecessarily tight – and despite complying, sites still faced threats of enforcement and fines, “encouraging over-censorship”.
“A balanced approach is the only way to protect individual liberties, encourage innovation and safeguard children. It’s safe to say that significant changes must take place to achieve these objectives in the UK,” it said.
A UK government spokesperson said it is “demonstrably false” that the Online Safety Act compromises free speech.
“As well as legal duties to keep children safe, the very same law places clear and unequivocal duties on platforms to protect freedom of expression,” they added.
Users have complained about age checks that require personal data to be uploaded to access sites that show pornography, and 468,000 people have already signed a petition asking for the new law to be repealed.
In response to the petition, the government said it had “no plans” to reverse the Online Safety Act.
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Why do people want to repeal the Online Safety Act?
Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage likened the new rules to “state suppression of genuine free speech” and said his party would ditch the regulations.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said on Tuesday that those who wanted to overturn the act were “on the side of predators” – to which Mr Farage demanded an apology, calling Mr Kyle’s comments “absolutely disgusting”.
Regulator Ofcom said on Thursday it had launched an investigation into how four companies – that collectively run 34 pornography sites – are complying with new age-check requirements.
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These companies – 8579 LLC, AVS Group Ltd, Kick Online Entertainment S.A. and Trendio Ltd – run dozens of sites, and collectively have more than nine million unique monthly UK visitors, the internet watchdog said.
The regulator said it prioritised the companies based on the risk of harm posed by the services they operated and their user numbers.
It adds to the 11 investigations already in progress into 4chan, as well as an unnamed online suicide forum, seven file-sharing services, and two adult websites.
Ofcom said it expects to make further enforcement announcements in the coming months.
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