Health Secretary Therese Coffey has said she is confident nurses will not get a higher pay offer as they vote on strike action.
Ms Coffey said she was “not anticipating” any changes to the 4 per cent pay rise that nurses had already been offered, just days after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) ballot got underway.
The RCN has demanded a pay rise of 5 per cent above inflation, which is currently at 9.9 per cent. London nurses told the Standard last week that they had reached the “point of desperation” and that their pay was insufficient to match soaring energy bills and rent hikes.
Reacting to the strikes, Ms Coffey told Sky News: “I understand that the ballot is now open, we’ve honoured the independent pay review body’s recommendations on this.
“That was higher than many of the other pay rises that other public-sector workers are getting.
“Dare I say it, having respect of the independent pay review body, I’m not anticipating that we’ll be making any further changes.”
Asked then that it seems a strike is inevitable, she said: “That’s a decision for nurses who decide how to vote in this next coming month.”
The RCN ballot closes on November 2.
Pat Cullen, the union’s general secretary, has said the Government’s offer of a 3% wage rise “makes a difference to a nurse’s wage of 72p a week”.
It comes after midwives are also being urged to vote in favour of strike action over pay in a ballot that will be held next month.
The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) announced it would ballot its members from November 11 for a period of four weeks on whether to take industrial action.
Health workers in other trade unions are also being balloted for industrial action over pay.
Earlier this year, the Government gave most NHS workers a £1,400 pay rise, significantly below what unions were calling for.
Elsewhere, Ms Coffey was asked by LBC’s Nick Ferrari why she had voted against legislation outlawing smoking in cars containing children in 2014. She responded: “I didn’t think it was the right thing to do to be telling parents how to handle the situation with their children.”
Ms Coffey was speaking as the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced the opening of ten new community diagnostic centres (CDCs) in the UK. Ms Coffey said the CDCs would help deal with Covid-19 backlogs by speeding up access to tests.
