A senior Royal College of Nursing figure has said nurses "agonised" over voting to strike - but did so due to the pressures they are facing and because many have been forced to use food banks to survive.
Karl Norwood, an operational manager for the RCN in the North, told ChronicleLive that the ballot, results of which were announced on Wednesday, was a "historic moment". He said: "It's the first time the RCN has ever recommended to its members to strike. But it's also a sad moment, that it's come to this. During the ballot, most nurses have agonised over this.
"But the RCN and nurses themselves have been warning that they have not been valued for the past ten years, during which time nurses pay has fallen in real terms 20%. The impact of that is that we are in the situation where we have 47,000 nursing vacancies in England.
