Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members have voted to pass a motion of no confidence in the current RCN Council.
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A vote was held at today’s emergency general meeting (EGM), alongside members having the opportunity to vote by proxy until 11am the day before on 27 September.
Just over 78% of voters agreed with the motion of no confidence – a total of 11,156 votes – with 22% disagreeing with the motion (3,124 votes).
The remaining 1,112 voters chose to abstain. The total turnout for the vote was just under 4%.
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The RCN Council will hold a meeting next week to plan their next steps, after it was revealed during the five-hour meeting that they had no contingency plans in the scenario of the motion being passed. But the vote means they have been asked to stand down from their positions.
During the debate, acting chief executive of the RCN Dame Professor Donna Kinnair was asked how the College came to discover the political affiliations of more than 600 petitioners, after she accused the petition for Council to stand down as being politically motivated.
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The vote follows an independent report, published late on Thursday evening, which found failings within the RCN with regard to their handling of the pay deal. Former chief executive Janet Davies was accused of ‘closing down’ scrutiny of the deal, while the College as a whole was told that it presented the deal in a way ‘biased towards its acceptance’.
