NHS strikes: pay deal signed off for one million workers

Announced yesterday, more than one million health staff in England are set to receive a 5% pay rise after health unions backed the deal offered by the government.

Behind closed doors, at a meeting held between government officials and 14 health unions representing all NHS staff apart from doctors and dentists, a pay deal was signed off, which, alongside a 5% pay rise would see staff including ambulance workers, nurses, physios and porters receive a one-off payment of at least £1,655.

However, three health unions, including the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), have rejected the deal and will continue to strike.

Over the bank holiday weekend, nurses across England hit the picket lines for the first time in over a month after they have recently rejected the government’s latest pay offer. Although their industrial action was cut short after a High Court in London deemed it ‘unlawful’.

Despite this, Pat Cullen, the RCN General Secretary, said she will be holding a new ballot to plan a number of fresh strikes – it will be a national ballot rather than a series of local workplace ones. That means it will be harder to get a strike mandate – something dubbed an ‘all or nothing’ approach in one last attempt to get ministers to return to the negotiating table.

Unite – a health union representing ambulance workers – have also rejected the pay deal. The union currently has a strike mandate and that is for local strikes in some ambulance services and a few hospitals.

Although some health unions were not present at yesterday’s meeting to sign off the pay deal, Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, said he was pleased the offer, which was first proposed in March, had been accepted by the unions after members got to vote on it.

Mr Barclay said: ‘Where some unions may choose to remain in dispute, we hope their members – many of whom voted to accept this offer – will recognise this as a fair outcome that carriers the support of their colleagues and decide it is time to bring industrial action to an end.

‘We will continue to engage constructively with unions on workforce changes to ensure the NHS is the best place to work for staff, patients and taxpayers.’

Image: David W. Meyer