A NURSES’ union is preparing for strike action as anger grows about the 1% pay rise proposed for NHS staff in England reports The Guardian.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said that at an emergency meeting called by its governing council, members voted to set up a £35m fund to support workers facing loss of earnings owing to industrial action.

It said it would only be used by members “should they wish to take action”, cautioning that the “next steps will be decided in conjunction” with them.

The group has called the planned pay increase “pitiful”, and doctors’ groups have accused the government of a dereliction of duty after Boris Johnson’s effusive praise for health and social care workers during the pandemic.

The junior health minister Nadine Dorries said on Friday that ideally nurses would get a bigger pay rise, and she suggested the government could “move” on the issue. 

Dorries told BBC Breakfast: “I was actually surprised because I knew that we’d frozen public sector pay, that no one in the public sector was receiving a pay rise, so I was pleasantly surprised that we were making an offer.”Starmer calls for NHS ‘heroes’ to get bigger pay rise after unions attack ‘pitiful’ 1% Read more

She said the offer was the most the government thought it could afford and put forward to the NHS pay review body. She told Sky News: “That will be discussed, then we will wait for feedback from unions and other health sector stakeholders and see where we move to on this, but the 1% is what the government can afford.”