NHS nurses ‘not afraid to strike ‘over pay despite review, says union leader
Nurses are entering a major pay review process “with grace” but are “not afraid to strike” in the future, the head of nurses’ professional body has said.
Professor Nicola Ranger, general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said targeted industrial action could be taken against NHS trusts that fail to adequately increase pay for Band 5 nurses.
Professor Ranger described the government’s commitment to review every Band 5 nursing role in England as “the best opportunity to elevate nursing in decades”.
A Band 5 nurse represents an entry-level position for newly qualified registered nurses under the NHS Agenda for Change payment system. But the RCN claims many staff remain at this level for years, even decades, despite carrying out tasks requiring greater skill and greater responsibility.
The review, announced in February, means all Band 5 nurses are eligible for reassessment; this will potentially lead to wage increases and the government will provide funds to employers to cover these wage increases. The RCN is currently awaiting the “final plan” for the rollout of the scheme. The plan is expected to be implemented in the coming weeks, with implementation expected to begin “this summer.”
“We will push for this to be done in a good, but systematic way and be part of the overall review of how each employer performs in the process,” Professor Ranger said. Press Association.
He stressed that nursing was the “absolute backbone of this country” amid challenges such as the cost of living crisis and global issues such as the war in Iran, and insisted the scheme “must continue to stay on the right track”.
Professor Ranger reiterated the assurance that the initiative was “not about affordability, but about recognizing what is right”, given clear evidence that nurses “are at the bottom of the pay scale”. He added: “Whilst I accept that the financial situation is more challenging, we do not in any way expect this scheme to suffer as a result of those difficulties.”
The RCN leader vowed to be “absolutely open and unapologetic” about holding employers to account. The union’s goal is for the staff nurse role to be included in Group 6; Citing the example of Scotland where 80 per cent of Group 5 nurses who went through a similar process were upgraded to Group 6.
“So we keep in mind what that conversion rate should be,” he said. If some trusts achieve a conversion rate of 75-80 per cent while others manage only 5 per cent, the RCN will identify these “outliers” and take action.
This opportunity is particularly important because funding for wage increases will come directly from the government, not from individual foundation budgets.
“This is the first time we’ve been able to start lifting up nursing and it’s not the trust’s job to worry about where the money comes from, it’s something the Government needs to agree and sort out and the trust is fair to its nurses, it’s as simple as that,” Professor Ranger said, promising the RCN “will be very bold and strong on this and if they don’t we will take action against them.”
The threat of a strike remains, although there is no immediate desire for a vote on industrial action, as the RCN wants to enter the project “with good grace” and give it a chance.
“In fairness to the previous health minister, this is a plan that he personally supported, and part of that was to prevent us from continuing to picket,” he explained. “But we have to be really clear; we decide to do this and we accept it, but that doesn’t mean we’re afraid to attack.”
Professor Ranger also issued a warning to new Health Minister James Murray, saying he would face an “uphill battle” and “fail” if he did not value nursing sufficiently.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Nurses are the backbone of our NHS and deserve to be properly recognized for the vital work they do.
“A nurse entering the profession today receives 18.6 percent more basic pay than 4 years ago, and this government has launched a package of measures to transform the nursing profession and ensure nurses receive the wages and support they deserve.”
This package includes increasing graduate access to jobs, prioritizing increasing graduate wages, reviewing Band 5 roles and creating a national teaching framework for newly qualified nurses.
