General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing Pat Cullen will appeal to the prime minister directly in a speech today (Picture: PA)
The leader of the Royal College of Nursing will use a speech today to call for the prime minister to get around the negotiating table ahead of the union’s next ballot on strikes.
Pat Cullen is to address the RCN’s annual congress in Brighton today, amid warnings industrial action could continue until Christmas and lead to serious disruption in the health service.
The upcoming postal ballot for members in England is set to open on May 23 and last until June 23.
If nurses vote for further strikes, it would force the cancellation of thousands of patient operations and appointments.
In her speech, Ms Cullen will say the NHS and social care system are ‘sailing dangerously close to the wind’ and describe the situation as ‘brutally unfair’ to patients.
Calling on Rishi Sunak to take action, she will say: ‘Nobody wants to see twice as many nurses take strike action. Or twice as many hospitals affected by a strike.
‘Prime Minister, you did the right thing to open negotiations with me in February.
‘Before the 75th birthday of the NHS this July, let’s get this job finished.’
Nurses in England staged a 28-hour walkout around the beginning of this month (Picture: Maureen McLean/Shutterstock)
She will add that the government ‘will be forced to act’ if nursing staff give the union another six-month mandate for industrial action through the ballot.
Ms Cullen will describe how reluctant the members are to walk out, saying she has never ‘met a nurse or support worker who wanted to be on a picket line’.
However, she will say: ‘Standing outside our work became the only way to change what was happening inside.
‘Patients are not dying because nurses are striking; nurses are striking because our patients are dying. It is as clear as that.
‘The health and care system, across the whole of the UK, is sailing dangerously close to the wind right now.
‘It is brutally unfair on your patients and the conditions feel intolerable for too many nurses and nursing support workers.
‘Many people I spoke to on picket lines were in tears at how far they had been pushed and never thought striking would be a move nursing would ever make. Your courage and sheer determination has been an inspiration.’
The union leader will say her message to ‘every single politician’ in the country is ‘never again dare to believe that you can keep nursing staff quiet’.
At the very end of last month, nurses walked out on a 28-hour strike over pay.
The length of the action was cut short by a High Court ruling that said it would be unlawful for it continue beyond midnight on May 2.
Nursing staff in Wales, meanwhile, voted to reject the latest NHS pay offer in a ballot that ended last Wednesday.
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‘Patients are not dying because nurses are striking; nurses are striking because our patients are dying.’Â
