Nurses and doctors are set to take strike action in the coming months (Picture: Getty)
Around half-a-million hospital workers are set to be given the opportunity to go on strike over pay in the coming months, it has been revealed.
Nurses, doctors, ambulance crews, porters and cleaners are all set to be balloted for strikes, which could leave thousands of hospitals short of staff.
Unison has announced that its members in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, will all vote in the coming weeks on whether to mount a campaign of industrial action.
Members of other health unions representing nurses, midwives, ambulance crews and physiotherapists are also being balloted for industrial action.
Figures show almost half-a-million NHS workers could be involved in strikes and other forms of industrial action before Christmas.
Thousands of nurses and doctors across the UK could be set to strike before Christmas (Picture: Getty / NuurPhoto)
It could be some of the biggest major strike action since the 1980s (Picture: Nils Jorgensen/Shutterstock)
NHS staff marched on Downing Street over a payrise last year (Picture: Getty)
Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said the Government’s decision to award a £1,400 pay rise in the summer had caused anger among NHS workers, sparking resignations across the service.
She accused the Westminster Government of treating unions as the ‘enemy within’ and of ignoring pleas to discuss pay in a bid to avert industrial action.
She said: ‘They don’t want to talk to us – they want to demonise us,’
‘The NHS is haemorrhaging staff and cannot recruit new employees, partly because pay is so low.’
Ms McAnea said NHS staff are being asked to work double shifts, or to work extra hours at weekends because of the staff shortages, leaving them ‘exhausted’.
She said there would be so-called ‘life and limb’ coverage if there is a strike, but she maintained many hospitals are already operating at such staffing levels because of the recruitment crisis in the NHS.
‘Many of our members feel they are already operating at strike levels of staffing. If they go on strike they hope it will show the Government how bad things have got.’
According to UNISON the NHS is losing lots of staff over pay (Picture: Getty)
Thousands of hospital staff marched in demand for better pay last year and now even more industrial action looks likely (Picture: Getty)
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She predicted that any industrial action will be co-ordinated with other health unions, threatening the biggest strike for years, adding she cannot guarantee that services will not be affected.
She said: ‘We would expect the Westminster Government to talk to us given that they are facing a massive strike, but the rhetoric is just accusing us of being the enemy.’
The Unison leader said railway workers had received support from the public for their strikes and she is certain nurses and other health workers will receive similar support.
Unison members will start voting on October 27.
NHS workers went on strike across England over pay in 2014.
Before that, the last time there was a UK-wide strike over pay involving health workers was in 1982.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘We are giving over 1 million NHS workers a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year, as recommended by the independent NHS Pay Review Body.
‘Industrial action is a matter for unions, and we urge them to carefully consider the potential impacts on patients.’
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Hundreds of thousands of NHS staff including doctors and nurses could all go on strike before some of the busiest times of the year.