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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Is your area among the worst affected by nurses’ strike?
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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’
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.
The union blames not just pay, but also heavy workloads.
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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.
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Pay rise ‘not affordable’
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.
UK
Urgent letter to home secretary over violence against women and girls strategy – as it omits child abuse
Ten child protection organisations have written an urgent letter to the home secretary expressing concern about the omission of child sexual abuse from the government’s violence against women and girls strategy, following a Sky News report.
Groups including the NSPCC, Barnardo’s and The Children’s Society wrote to Yvette Cooper to say that violence against women and girls (VAWG) and child sexual abuse are “inherently and deeply connected”, suggesting any “serious strategy” to address VAWG needs to focus on child sexual abuse and exploitation.
The letter comes after Sky News revealed an internal Home Office document, titled Our draft definition of VAWG, which said that child sexual abuse and exploitation is not “explicitly within the scope” of their strategy, due to be published in September.
Poppy Eyre when she was four years old
Responding to Sky News’ original report, Poppy Eyre, who was sexually abused and raped by her grandfather when she was four, said: “VAWG is – violence against women and girls. If you take child sexual abuse out of it, where are the girls?”
The Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, which is funded by the Home Office and a signatory to the letter, estimates 500,000 children in England and Wales are sexually abused every year.
The NSPCC “welcome” the government’s pledge to halve VAWG in a decade, but is “worried that if they are going to fulfil this commitment, the strategy absolutely has to include clear deliverable objectives to combat child sexual abuse and exploitation too”, the head of policy, Anna Edmundson, told Sky News.
Poppy is a survivor of child sexual abuse
She warned the government “will miss a golden opportunity” and the needs of thousands of girls will be “overlooked” if child sexual abuse and exploitation is not “at the heart of its flagship strategy”.
The government insists the VAWG programme will include action to tackle child sexual abuse, but says it also wants to create a distinctive plan to “ensure those crimes get the specialist response they demand”.
“My message to the government is that if you’re going to make child sexual abuse a separate thing, we need it now,” Poppy told Sky News.
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Rape Crisis, which is one of the largest organisations providing support to women in England and Wales, shares these concerns.
It wants plans to tackle child sexual abuse to be part of the strategy, and not to sit outside it.
“If a violence against women and girls strategy doesn’t include sexual violence towards girls, then it runs the risk of being a strategy for addressing some violence towards some females, but not all,” chief executive Ciara Bergman said.
A Home Office spokesperson said the government is “working tirelessly to tackle the appalling crimes of violence against women and girls and child sexual exploitation and abuse, as part of our Safer Streets mission”.
“We are already investing in new programmes and introducing landmark laws to overhaul the policing and criminal justice response to these crimes, as well as acting on the recommendations of Baroness Casey’s review into group-based Child Sexual Exploitation, and the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse,” they added.
UK
Man and boy arrested on suspicion of arson after restaurant fire leaves two in critical condition
A 54-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy have been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life after a restaurant fire in east London on Friday.
Three people were taken to hospital in a life-threatening condition after the fire at the Indian Aroma in Ilford.
Two remained in a critical condition on Sunday morning, according to the Metropolitan Police.
The restaurant suffered extensive damage in the blaze.
Two further victims are thought to have left the scene before officers arrived, Scotland Yard said.
Woodford Avenue from above. Pic: UK News and Pictures
Police are still trying to identify them.
CCTV footage seen by the PA news agency appears to show a group of people wearing face coverings walk into the restaurant and pour liquid on the floor.
Seconds later, the inside of the restaurant is engulfed in flames.
“While we have made two arrests, our investigation continues at pace so we can piece together what happened on Friday evening,” said the Met Police’s DCI Mark Rogers.
“I know the community [is] concerned and shocked by this incident.
The moment the fire broke out.
“I would urge anyone with any information or concerns to come forward and speak to police.”
Hospital porter Edward Thawe went to help after hearing screams from his nearby home.
He described the scene as “horrible” and “more than scary and the sort of thing that you don’t want to look at twice.”
He said: “I heard screaming and people saying they had called the police.”
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The 43-year-old said he saw a woman and a severely burned man who may have been customers.
Another witness, who did not want to be named, said he saw three “severely burned” people being doused by the emergency services and given oxygen.
“I can only imagine the pain they were going through,” he said.
On Saturday, the London Ambulance Service told Sky News: “We sent resources to the scene, including ambulance crews, an advanced paramedic, an incident response officer and paramedics from our hazardous area response team.
“We treated five people for burns and smoke inhalation. We took two patients to a major trauma centre and three others to local hospitals.”
The police investigation is continuing.
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