20 April 2007
Nurses have demanded a meeting with Chancellor Gordon Brown and Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt as they threatened industrial action over this year's staged pay award.
The Royal College of Nursing annual congress in Harrogate this week heard condemnations of the government's decision to stage the 2.5% rise — paid as a 1.5% increase in April and a further 1% in November.
The conference backed two emergency motions — one calling on the union's ruling council to investigate appropriate forms of industrial action and the other urging the government to implement the pay awards in full.
That the normally docile RCN is willing to take nationwide industrial action for the first time in its 91-year history is a measure of the profession's anger.
Unison, which has NHS members in nursing as well as other clinical and administrative staff, is expected to back industrial action over the pay award at its annual conference next week.
The British Medical Association was expected to put further pressure on ministers when GPs met to discuss their 0% pay award on April 19.
The RCN said the staged award was the equivalent of 1.9% over this year and the measure would save the NHS £60m.
The union's rules mean their actions cannot harm patients, so a walk-out by RCN members can be ruled out. However, RCN general secretary Peter Carter said that action could include a work-to-rule or a refusal to keep up to date with forms not directly related to patient care.
This could include information needed to prove government targets have been met.
Carter had earlier told the congress that nurses' opinion on the government's management of the NHS had hardened. However, he struck a note of caution over the proposed industrial action, insisting that he meet with the chancellor and health secretary first, before taking a decision to ballot members.
If the government does not reverse its decision to stage the awards, plans for industrial action will be put to the RCN's council on May 16.
PFapr2007
