Health unions, including the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), are calling on their members to sign and send a letter to the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The letter calls for Rishi Sunak to meet with health unions to resolve the current pay disputes in England and across the UK.
The ready-made letter, that RCM members can simply and quickly sign online and send, asks Rishi Sunak to commit to solving the NHS staffing crisis by giving NHS staff a decent pay rise. The letter says this is an essential first step to stop midwives, maternity support workers (MSW) and other staff leaving the NHS. To sign and send the letter go to Write to Rishi – #WithNHSStaff.
“Although we only just missed the threshold in our England ballot so cannot take industrial action, our campaign for better pay and working conditions for our members, and safer care for women, carries on. We are still in dispute with the Westminster Government over the paltry 4% pay award for most RCM members that they imposed on you this year. This letter is part of our campaign to keep this issue alive and to fight for a decent deal for you,” said Alice Sorby, the RCM’s Director for Employment Relations. “Your individual and collective voice still counts, and this is one way to take it straight into 10 Downing Street and onto the desk of the man leading the country.”
The joint health unions are also addressing the Prime Minister directly, laying out the causes of the NHS crisis and calling on him to work with them to find a way to fix it. A solution must be found to halt the strikes by NHS staff and to stop the crisis from worsening. It says an urgent package of measures to stop people leaving jobs in the NHS for better paid and less stressful work elsewhere is needed. This means more funding for the NHS and better pay for staff say the joint unions.
Evelyn Quartey is a RCM member and an MSW in London laid out the impact that historically high inflation rates and pay falling in real terms are having on her. “I struggle to make ends meet. My pay hasn’t gone up in line with prices for years. Now with the cost-of-living crisis things are really bad. I’m having to think all the time about whether I can get to the end of the month. I shouldn’t have to be worrying about whether I can afford food or the commute to work,” she said.
For more information on the RCM’s pay campaigns In England and across the UK, visit Pay Hub – RCM.
