Seven in 10 say there is inadequate staffing to provide safe care
In a survey for the Royal College of Nursing, 81 per cent of Londoners told YouGov that nurses in the NHS are underpaid for their work with seven in ten saying there are too few nurses to provide safe care.
The exclusive polling comes after a number of reports this week suggested that Theresa May could lift the public sector pay cap. The RCN confirmed that industrial action is on the table should the cap not be lifted in this year’s autumn budget.
On Wednesday, thousands of nurses from across the country will take a day of leave from NHS duties and descend on Parliament Square to take part in the RCN’s biggest ever protest about pay, which will also be addressed by actor Tony Robinson and comedian Rob Delaney.
The nursing union is calling on the Government to scrap the pay cap, which has driven a nurse recruitment and retention crisis in the NHS. Years of pay freezes and below-inflation increases from the Treasury has seen nursing pay fall by 14 per cent in real-terms since 2010, now worth £3,000 per year.
In the capital, there are now 13,000 empty nursing posts, the highest on record. London now accounts for one in three of all unfilled posts meaning wards are understaffed and nurses are overstretched.
In May, nine in ten of the RCN’s membership said they would support industrial action short of a strike and almost eight in ten said they were prepared to go on strike if the pay cap is not lifted.
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