Following a meeting with health secretary Steve Barclay, RCN director of employment relations and legal services, Jo Galbraith-Marten, said:
“We will only make progress through detailed discussions that seriously consider the concerns of nursing staff.
“Until the government recognises the need to pay nursing fairly, meetings will be ineffective. No nurse ever wants to strike, but we have been forced into this situation because low pay and workforce shortages are pushing nursing staff out of the profession and making care increasingly unsafe.
“Ministers can stop strike action by nursing staff at any point. Our door is always open.”
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