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The head of the UK’s nursing union wants to restart negotiations seeking a double-digit pay rise – despite previously recommending a lower offer.

Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), had advised members to accept an offer of 5%, but they voted to reject it.

Speaking to Sky News’ Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, cabinet minister Grant Shapps said: “I find this a very curious story indeed because Pat Cullen just recently was encouraging her members to settle for the pay rise that was put on the table.

Nurses on strike outside of St Thomas' Hospital in London in April
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Nurses on strike outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London in April

“I thought this was a great settlement.

“It’s frankly rather confusing having encouraged her members to accept that deal, she seems to now be coming back and saying the opposite.

“You have got to balance that with the rest of the public purse.”

But speaking on Sunday, Ms Cullen hit back, saying the decision by nurses to reject the deal in a ballot was them saying “loud and clear” that the offer – of a 9% increase consolidated over two years – was “just not enough”.

“They rejected that and they want negotiations re-opened for them and here needs to be more money added to the table,” she said.

Asked if a double-digit pay rise was achievable, she said: “There is nothing unrealistic about what nursing staff are asking for.

“The only way that we are going to resolve this dispute is to listen to their voice and make sure this pay dispute is resolved, for patients as much as it is for the profession.”

RCN members will be balloted again for strike action on 23 May after the existing six-month mandate ran out at the start of the month.

Ms Cullen described striking as one of the “hardest decisions”, and told The Sunday Times that fresh negotiations were needed to prevent six more months of action.

“They [ministers] owe that to nursing staff not to push them to have to do another six months of industrial action right up to Christmas,” she said ahead of Sunday’s RCN congress in Brighton, telling Health Secretary Steve Barclay talks needed to “start off in double figures”.

“It’s just not right for the profession,” she said.

“It’s not right for patients. But whose responsibility is it to resolve it? It is this government.”

The nurses’ strikes: A timeline

25 November 2022 -The Royal College of Nursing announces it will hold strike action for the first time since its creation more than a century ago in a dispute over pay and working conditions.

15 December – Nurses hold their biggest nationwide strike in history with a 12-hour walkout, leading to thousands of appointments, procedures and surgeries being cancelled.

18 and 19 January – Thousands of nurses hold a further strike over two days

21 January – The head of NHS England warns repeated walkouts by health staff are making workloads ‘more challenging’.

2 February – A petition signed by 100,000 people is delivered to Downing Street demanding fair pay for nursing.

6 February – Tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance staff walkout together in the biggest strike in NHS history.

21 February – Nurses agree to pause a major 48-hour strike planned on 1 March for pay talks.

16 March – Unions, including the RCN, suspend further strikes and recommend a new pay offer involving a 5% pay rise for staff this year and a cash sum for last year.

20 March – NHS strikes in Scotland are called off after unions representing midwives and nurses voted to accept the Scottish government’s pay offer.

28 March – Up to 280,000 RCN members vote on whether to accept the government’s pay offer.

14 April – RCN members reject the deal and announce a 48-hour walkout on 30 April.

16 April – RCN leader Pat Cullen warns nurses could strike until Christmas and calls for the government to improve its pay offer.

21 April – The government takes legal action over the planned bank holiday walkout as the strike mandate runs out during the action on 1 May.

27 April – Strike action planned by the RCN on 2 May is called off after a judge ruled it would be unlawful.

29 April – The RCN agrees to supply some staff during the curtailed strike following patient safety concerns.

30 April – Nurses stage 28-hour strike.

2 May – Most health unions back the new pay deal, although both the RCN and Unite vote against it. The RCN says it will ballot members on further strikes between June and December.

9 May – It is announced nurses will vote between 23 May and 23 June on whether to stage more walkouts.

10 May – Nurses in Wales vote to strike again this summer after rejecting the Welsh government’s latest pay offer.

14 May – Ms Cullen calls for Health Secretary Steve Barclay to restart pay talks with a proposed rise in double digits – a move described as “curious and confusing” by cabinet minister Grant Shapps given she had recommended the previous offer to her members.

An RCN spokesperson said: “The negotiations covered two financial years which resulted in a consolidated NHS pay increase of 9%. When our members rejected that, it is clear they expect an offer into double figures.”

Fourteen other unions have accepted the government’s 5% offer, including Unison, the NHS’s biggest union. Others like Unite continue to seek a better offer.

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Earlier this month: Nurse strikes could go ‘right up to Christmas’

A health department source added: “It is strange how quickly the RCN leader has changed her tune from recommending this pay deal, which she now refers to as an insult to nurses.”

The comments come after Ms Cullen told The Sunday Times: “It’s not so long ago since the prime minister went on the media and very publicly said nurses are an exception,” she said when asked why nurses warrant a larger increase than other healthcare workers.

“I would totally agree with him… they should be made an exception because they are exceptional people.”

Read more:
Nurses to vote on England-wide strike action after rejecting 5% pay rise
NHS employers and unions meet as health secretary ‘optimistic’ deal will be reached
Nurses’ strike begins as union insists critical care exemptions are in place

The mental health nurse, 58, from Co Tyrone, said patient safety was “at the centre of everything that we do”.

“We will do nothing that will add further risk to the patients that we look after,” she said, saying increased pay would see nurses return to the profession and ease a staffing crisis.

“The truth is that patient safety cannot be guaranteed on any day of the week. How could you guarantee patient safety when you have 47,000 nurses from your workforce every single day and night?”

She also warned Prime Minister Rishi Sunak not to take her members lightly.

“Looking back on this pay offer, I may personally have underestimated the members and their sheer determination,” she said.

“I think what I would be saying to the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is ‘Don’t – don’t make that same mistake, don’t underestimate them’.

“Nurses believe it’s their duty and their responsibility because this government is not listening to them on how to bring it [the NHS] back from the brink and the message to the prime minister is that they are absolutely not going to blink first in these negotiations.”

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

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At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

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UK aims to build relationship with Syria

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Read more from Sky News:
UK restores diplomatic ties with Syria
Church in Syria targeted by suicide bomber

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

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Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

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Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.

(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. Pic: AP
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(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP

Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.

Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.

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IDF blames ‘technical error’ after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

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IDF blames 'technical error' after Gaza officials say children collecting water killed in strike

The Israeli military says it missed its intended target after Gaza officials said 10 Palestinians – including six children – were killed in a strike at a water collection point.

Another 17 people were wounded in the strike on a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al Awda Hospital.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant but a “technical error with the munition” had caused the missile to fall “dozens of metres from the target”.

The IDF said the incident is under review, adding that it “works to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians as much as possible” and “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

A wounded child is treated after the strike on the water collection point. Pic: Reuters
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A wounded child is treated after the strike on the water collection point. Pic: Reuters

Officials at Al Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after the Israeli strike on the water collection point and six children were among the dead.

Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, said around 20 children and 14 adults were lined up Sunday morning to fill up water.

When the strike occurred, everyone ran and some, including those who were severely injured, fell to the ground, he said.

Blood stains are seen on containers at the water collection point. Pic: Reuters
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Blood stains are seen on containers at the water collection point. Pic: Reuters

In total, 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, local health officials said.

Two women and three children were among nine killed after an Israeli strike on a home in the central town of Zawaida, officials at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said.

Israel has claimed it hit more than 150 targets in the besieged enclave in the past day.

The latest strikes come after the Israel military opened fire near an aid centre in Rafah on Saturday. The Red Cross said 31 people were killed.

The IDF has said it fired “warning shots” near the aid distribution site but it was “not aware of injured individuals” as a result.

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Palestinians shot while seeking aid, says paramedic

The war in Gaza started in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people and saw about 250 taken hostage.

More than 58,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with more than half being women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

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Dozens of MPs call for UK to recognise Palestine as state

US President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement that would see more hostages released and potentially wind down the war.

But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough, as a new sticking point emerged over the deployment of Israeli troops during the truce.

Hamas still holds 50 hostages, with fewer than half of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

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