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COURIER OPINION: No time to lose to prevent nurses’ strike

photo shows Humza Yousaf with a nurse at a hospital in Edinburgh.
Health secretary Humza Yousaf's latest pay offer has been rejected by the biggest nurses union in Scotland, whose members have voted to strike. Image: Lesley Martin/PA Wire.

The NHS remains the jewel in this country’s crown.

Universal access to free, high-quality healthcare is a right of every person
in this country and something of which we are all rightly proud.

But the NHS service is nothing without the army of people who work within it. Including, of course, the nurses who provide such incredible care.

photo shows three nurses looking at a computer on a ward.
Nurses in Scotland have voted to strike after rejecting the latest pay offer – a flat rate of £2,205 per person. Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

There are surely very few who would argue that those who provide care in our time of greatest need deserve anything other than the ability to make a decent living.

But tens of thousands of RCN-affiliated nurses in Scotland have now voted to strike over pay.

Many say they are struggling to make ends meet as the cost-of-living crisis deepens..

A flat rate offer of £2,205 per person, backdated to April, might seem reasonable – even generous – in any other climate.

But the union describes that as a real-terms pay cut. And it is demanding an award of 5% above inflation

Deputy first minister John Swinney recently warned the cupboard was all but bare.

The lines are drawn for a protracted battle.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney
Deputy First Minister John Swinney.

It is a disheartening prospect  – and one that will cause fear and alarm for anyone expecting to spend time in hospital in the coming months.

That is why negotiations must take place urgently and a compromise must be found before frontline services are adversely impacted.

There is no time to lose.

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