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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Toby Helm, James Tapper and Jon Ungoed-Thomas

NHS crisis deepens as nursing union plans ‘mega strike’ in England

Pat Cullen, the RCN’s general secretary, said the government had no option but to reopen pay talks.
Pat Cullen, the RCN’s general secretary, said the government had no option but to reopen pay talks. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA

England’s biggest nursing union is to ballot its members on whether to join a “make or break” mega-strike that would lead to mass action by nurses in every hospital trust in the country, the Observer can reveal.

The move by the Royal College of Nursing to “up the ante” by holding a single national vote – rather than conducting ballots in each individual trust as it did last October – would, if passed, mean twice as many trusts being hit by industrial action by nurses as have been so far.

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