UNISON has announced that its members working in the NHS in England will stage a strike over pay.

Members of the union will have a four-hour stoppage between 7am and 11am on Monday, October 13.

This will be followed by four days of action short of strike action between Tuesday, October 14 and Friday, October 17 when members will stop working through their breaks and instead take their breaks.

A ballot conducted by the union showed that 68 per cent of its members voted in favour of industrial action with 88 per cent agreeing to action short of strike action last week.

UNISON South West head of health, Helen Eccles, said:

“NHS members don’t take action often or lightly. For many of our members this will be the first time they walk out as the last action over pay was 32 years ago.

“The NHS runs on the goodwill of its workers, but this Government has shown utter contempt for them.

“Tens of thousands of UNISON members across the South West have told us they will undertake industrial action because they haven’t had a pay rise in four years, the gap between pay and bills is getting bigger and they are really struggling to make ends meet.

“The fact that the government has decided that a 1per cent pay rise for NHS workers isn’t affordable when at the same time an 11 per cent award is made to MPs seems to show that the work of NHS staff is neither recognised nor valued.

“NHS staff simply can’t afford for this to continue; a motivated and valued workforce is essential in delivering high quality services to patients.

“We are working with NHS employers to minimise the impact on patients. But it's not too late for Jeremy Hunt to act to avoid this and we repeat our offer to the government to negotiate with us despite him refusing to meet with health unions about pay."

Earlier this year the government gave a 1 per cent non-consolidated increase only to staff at the top of their incremental scale rather than going with the recommendations of the NHS Pay Review Body.

Because the award is non-consolidated it will not count towards pension entitlements or shift pay.

There are 10 unions balloting in the NHS over pay and UNISON’S action will be co-ordinated with them.

Further discussions are taking place about the type of action short of strike action that will take place in the ten ambulance trusts in England and this will be announced at a later date.