RCN president prepared to strike if government ‘fails nursing’

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) president has suggested he would be prepared to take strike action if the government fails to deliver on its commitments to the profession.

Bejoy Sebastian he would be ‘happy’ to return to the picket lines should the government not ‘recognise the importance of nursing’ or deliver on its promises to the workforce, including a review of Band 5 NHS nurse roles.

Mr Sebastian was speaking to a room of nurses on the opening day of this year’s RCN Congress in Liverpool.

He said he wanted to ‘celebrate the power of collective action’ within nursing across workplaces in the UK.

‘You have been making yourselves heard, standing up for yourselves and your profession and your patients, and this collective action yields results,’ added Mr Sebastian.

He pointed to the government’s recent promise to review every NHS Band 5 role in England.

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‘I think this is a crucial announcement, and I want to tell you why. You should expect your pay band and your job description to reflect the work you actually do, but in nursing this is too often not the case,’ said Mr Sebastian.

‘Nurses undertake further training, gain additional qualifications, and are required to carry increasing clinical risk. This isn’t just a pay issue, it is a professional recognition issue.’

While this review excludes many general practice nurses who are not on Agenda for Change contracts, the RCN recently suggested this commitment from the government should be mirrored across the whole of nursing.

Mr Sebastian said it was the issue of pay that first drew him to run for the RCN president role.

‘But the true moment of enlightenment was a single conversation with one of my colleagues on the picket line during strike action. They pointed out something deeply unjust,’ he said, referring to previous strike action by the RCN which was last carried out in 2023.

‘We are the only graduate profession under Agenda for Change, where the largest proportion of staff remain stuck on Band 5 for most of their careers, with many even retiring at the same pay grade.

‘As the entry pay band is set too low, that injustice follows us throughout our entire career, and even when we progress, that financial disadvantage created at the start of our career never truly disappears.

‘It affects every level of nursing, and I can see it happening around me.’

Annual pay awards for nurses ‘should be the norm’ and ‘it is unacceptable that they are not’, said Mr Sebastian.

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‘We have to fight for it, but the real work isn’t just fighting for the annual percentage at least, the deeper task for us in nursing currently is securing a meaningful uplift at the very foundation of the pay structure, and then building upward to raise the profession as a whole,’ he added.

‘Nurses must be paid fairly for the complexity, the responsibility, and the safety-critical work that our roles demand.’

This issue is particularly evident in general practice nursing, with a recent Nursing in Practice survey revealing that more than a third of nurses working across general practice went without a pay rise in 2025/26.

Mr Sebastian added: ‘We know that there are many challenges facing us and our profession. We know there are issues in the health and social care sector, the abuses, there’s so many challenges that we are facing every single day.’

The RCN president suggested there are ‘so many areas where we can and must organise to create sustained action to make change possible’.

‘As a profession and as college, we must remain steady and ready, ready and organised to do more and to rise to the challenges,’ he said.

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‘If the governments across the country don’t follow through on their commitments to nursing or fail to recognise the importance of nursing as we plan for the future of the profession, please, let me be clear, I am happy to go back where I came from – the picket lines.

‘We will raise our voices louder and stand together, because we are the ones who can make change happen.

‘Together we can continue to create a brighter future for nursing, and brighter days are coming.’