NHS threatens legal action to BLOCK second day of May Day nurses’ strike

The NHS is threatening legal action against striking nurses, claiming that the second day of their planned walkout next month would be ‘unlawful’.

NHS Employers wrote to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) yesterday, warning that they do not have a legal mandate to endorse industrial action in England on May 2.

It means that the health service and the nurses’ union could face a clash in the High Court over whether the walkouts can go ahead.

Pat Cullen, chief executive of the RCN, last week announced the 48-hour strike, which will run from 8pm on April 30 to 8pm on May 2.

But NHS Employers, a membership organisation of NHS trusts, claims this would be unlawful as the RCN’s strike mandate runs out by midnight on May 2.

By law unions in England must hold strike action within six months of their industrial action ballot.

As the RCN announced the results of their historic strike ballot on  November 2 last year NHS Employers says the six month strike period expires on May 1.

In a letter to the union, Paul Wallace the organisation director of employment relations & reward, wrote: ‘Any action taken from (00:00:00) on 2 May 2023 by the RCN or its members will not have the support of the ballot and will be unlawful, and it will be unlawful for the RCN to endorse such action.’

He adds that NHS Employers expects that the union will now seek to communicate to its membership not to strike on May 2.

But the RCN is reported to be disputing NHS Employers’s claims, and is willing to fight them in court.

In a letter sent in response the nursing union said carrying the industrial action on to May 2 is lawful as per a precedent set by a mining dispute in 1995.

The Guardian reported that the RCN’s response reads: ‘It will be forcefully resisted by our leading counsel retained on this matter and we would also seek to recover our costs if any such application is unsuccessful, which I believe it would be.’

The dispute marks a serious escalation in the bitter pay dispute between the Government backed health service and the NHS unions over pay.

If it goes to court it could see taxpayer backed lawyers fighting the unions over the legality of industrial action.