
NHS braced for MORE chaos as nurses 'vote to reject their pay deal' and could join junior doctors on strike
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has been holding a vote among its members on the 3.6 per cent pay rise, with the results to be announced later this week.
The trade union has previously branded the pay offer as 'grotesque' as doctors, teachers, prison officers and the Armed Forces all received a bigger increase.
They have claimed nursing staff will see the pay rise 'entirely swallowed up by inflation '.
According to the BBC, the results of the RCN vote will show an 'overwhelming' rejection of the deal.
Union bosses are expected to demand the Government negotiate over the summer to avoid a formal ballot for strike action in the autumn.
It comes days after GMB health workers, including ambulance crews, rejected the Government's pay deal.
The union said its members voted by 67 per cent against the 3.6 per cent pay award offered for 2025/26 in England.
Thousands of resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, began a five-day walkout on Friday.
Relations between the Government and British Medical Association (BMA) have soured amid their own dispute about pay.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said the union will not be allowed to 'hold the country to ransom' after receiving a 28.9 per cent pay award over the last three years, the highest across the public sector.
But the BMA has said, despite this uplift, pay for resident doctors has declined by a fifth since 2008 once inflation is taken into account.
Mr Streeting is now braced for a separate dispute with nurses over pay, following the closure of the RCN vote.
An RCN spokesman said: 'The results will be announced to our members later this week.
'As the largest part of the NHS workforce, nursing staff do not feel valued and the Government must urgently begin to turn that around.'
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said new full-time nurses would receive £30,000 in basic pay for the first time this year following previous pay rises.
They added: 'This Government is clear we can't move any further on headline pay but will work with the RCN to improve their major concerns, including pay structure reform, concerns on career progression and wider working conditions.'
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has pledged to ban doctors' strikes if the Conservatives return to power.
She vowed to introduce legislation to block medics from taking widespread industrial action, placing the same restrictions on them that apply to police officers and soldiers.
The Tory plans would see minimum service level requirements - which were brought in for some sectors by the previous government and scrapped by Labour - introduced across the health service.
The only people restricted from going on strike in the UK under existing laws are police officers and members of the Armed Forces.

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