The message sent by members in England, Northern Ireland and Wales on pay was crystal clear – 3.6% is not enough. What is equally clear is that the systemic undervaluing of nursing won’t be addressed by annual cost-of-living awards alone.
We need bigger change to turn our profession around and ensure we are properly valued for the work we do. That means long-overdue structural reform of nursing pay in the NHS in every country of the UK.
This once-in-a-generation structural reform must end the scandal of nursing staff being continually weighted to the bottom of the Agenda for Change pay structure. It must deliver meaningful differences between pay bands, and fair, timely and consistent incremental steps within each band. As a profession, we cannot keep fighting for scraps. We need real change.
In England, you rejected the NHS pay award in record numbers. Since then, we've taken your mandate to government and held conversations on pay, including pushing for the long-overdue and urgently needed structural pay reform we desperately need. Now, we need formal negotiations which were promised as part of the government’s announcement on 2024/25 pay to start - and then deliver - for nursing, as they have in Scotland.
- We’re arguing for the same progression from band 5 to band 6 as that enjoyed by our midwifery and paramedic colleagues.
- We’re supporting hundreds of members to challenge their current pay band - this work will increase significantly in the next few months as we push employers to implement the new nursing profiles.
- We’re supporting our members who undertake band 3 nursing support worker duties, but who are paid on band 2, to be rebanded.
- We’ve lodged formal disputes to challenge the reduction of bank rates with a number of NHS employers in England.
- In Northern Ireland, we remain in formal dispute with the Northern Ireland Executive in the absence of a pay award for HSC nursing staff.
- The RCN in Wales has called for formal negotiations with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social care, and from next week members working on band 2, but undertaking band 3 duties, will be asked if a proposed collective agreement goes far enough to properly recognise their work.
You all have a huge role to play in our fight for proper recognition. Together we have to keep the pressure on governments and remind them of the essential contribution nursing makes to society.
But we won’t wait forever. Our General Secretary and Chief Executive Nicola Ranger was clear that negotiations have to start, but that the clock is ticking.
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