Nurses threaten action over pay award

Nurses' leaders have threatened to ballot their members on industrial action unless ministers reverse their decision to award nurses a below-inflation pay deal.

Dr Peter Carter, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said the union's council would be seeking an emergency meeting with Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, and Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, following angry scenes yesterday at the RCN's annual conference in Harrogate.

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The RCN's members called the pay award "insulting". Nurses also voted overwhelmingly, by 97 per cent, in favour of calling on the union's council to investigate what forms of industrial action could be taken.

The most likely action would be a "work to rule", which would see nurses working only their contracted hours. The Royal College's research shows that nurses work about six-and-a-half hours of unpaid overtime every week.

The independent pay review body recommended that nurses and health workers receive an annual increase of 2.5 per cent. But Mr Brown decided to give them 1.5 per cent from this month and an extra 1 per cent from November. This in effect amounts to 1.9 per cent over the year.