The Royal College of Nursing is setting up an emergency fund for strike action over the proposed 1% NHS pay rise.
The drum beat towards industrial action in the health service appears to have started after Unite also said it will consider holding ballots.
Workers are furious at the proposal from the Government which would amount to a real terms pay cut after inflation.
The Department of Health and Social Care has submitted its proposal to the NHS pay review body, which will decide in May how much of a salary uplift the vast majority of NHS staff across the UK should get in 2021-22.
The 1% rise would apply to all staff apart from junior doctors, GPs and dentists.
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After the news was slipped out on Thursday afternoon the RCN convened an emergency meeting on Friday and voted unanimously to set up a £35 million Industrial Action fund.
The strike fund could be used to pay members if they lose income in any future strike action.
It said in a statement: “In setting up this fund, the RCN will create the UK’s largest union strike fund overnight.
“The next steps will be decided in conjunction with our members. Further announcements will be made in the coming weeks.”
Unite national officer Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe, said: “Following yesterday’s kick-in-the-teeth announcement that the Government wants to peg NHS pay at 1% for 2021-22, Unite will be considering all its options, including the holding of an industrial action ballot, as our pay campaign mounts in the coming weeks.
“We will be fully consulting our members on the next steps, given that inflation could be 2% by the end of 2021, so what Prime Minister Boris Johnson is recommending is another pay cut in real terms.
“It shows an unyielding contempt by ministers for those who have done so much to care for tens of thousands of Covid-19 patients in the last year.
“The public is rightly outraged by a Government that can spend £37 billion on the flawed private sector Test and Trace programme, but can’t find the cash for a decent pay rise for those on the NHS front line.
Unions had been calling for a “pay restoration” deal with a rise of up to 15% in light of the pandemic crisis and a feared exodus of staff.
The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts inflation will rise to 1.5% this year — meaning a real-terms cut for NHS staff
Rachel Harrison, GMB officer, said: “NHS workers are furious.
“Ministers have followed this with an even more contemptuous defence of the paltry increase essentially saying ‘it’s better than nothing’.
“It’s dismissive and insulting to NHS workers who have had an incredibly tough year keeping us all safe.”
One nurse called Sam tweeted a photo of him at the end of a shift, saying: “I’m more tired, more worn out and even more deflated after today’s news of a measly 1% pay rise for NHS Staff.”
Callum Bell, an NHS mental health nurse, tweeted: “I’m a senior (band 6) Nurse.
“A 1% pay rise only puts an extra £6 in my pocket each week, which doesn’t even cover how much I get charged for parking at work.”
At least 230 frontline health and care workers have died after contracting coronavirus.
Boris Johnson and his Cabinet has repeatedly stood outside to be photographed during the weekly ‘Clap for Carers’ events.
On the day he left intensive care after contracting coronavirus the PM said: “The NHS has saved my life, no question.
“It’s hard to find words to express my debt... I have seen the personal courage not just of the doctors and nurses, but cleaners, the cooks, the healthcare workers of every description.
“The physios, radiographers, pharmacists who have kept coming to work, kept putting themselves in harm’s way and kept risking this deadly virus.”
