Nurses in Britain went on strike for the second time this month on Tuesday, with their union threatening to escalate a dispute over pay by setting out further strike days if the government does not respond to their demands in 48 hours. The job action by nearly 100,000 nurses is unprecedented in the union’s 106-year history. The government has offered nurses around four per cent and declined to discuss pay further, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak saying the nurses’ demand for a pay raise of five per cent plus inflation would equate to a 19 per cent hike and is unaffordable. But the union’s chief, Pat Cullen, issued an ultimatum for Sunak to meet with her to negotiate and “stop hiding behind the media.” With potential further strike action by nurses, and ambulance drivers and call handlers due to stage their own strike on Wednesday, Junior Health Minister Will Quince advised citizens not to undertake any “risky activity.”
