Nurses and other health workers belonging to Unite in Wales have voted to take strike action over the 2025-26 pay deal.
The union today announced that its members had rejected the 3.6% pay offer and urged the Welsh Government to engage in direct negotiations to improve the deal.
“The Senedd needs to come back with an improved pay offer before it’s too late”
Sharon Graham
Some 87% of respondents to Unite’s consultation rejected the award and said they would be prepared to take strike action to try to achieve a better and fairer pay increase.
It comes as the Welsh Government announced in May that it had accepted the NHS Pay Review Body’s recommendations for 2025-26.
Under the deal, nurses and other NHS staff working on Agenda for Change contracts will get a 3.6% uplift backdated to 1 April.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The government in Wales needs to address critical problems now, and the biggest is the pay and conditions of frontline workers without whom the NHS cannot survive.
“Workers cannot wait any longer for decent pay and better conditions,” she said.
“Any further exodus from the workplace will simply see the NHS in Wales fail to function.
“The Senedd needs to come back with an improved pay offer before it’s too late,” she added.
Unite has urged the Welsh Government to open up pay negotiations with unions.
It warned that, if negotiations do not take place, the union will have no choice but to start the formal industrial action ballot process.
Unite lead health officer for Wales, Paul Seppman, said: “Our sincere desire is to negotiate a better and much deserved pay increase for our members and NHS staff but our members are prepared to take action if there is no improved award.
“Morale in the NHS in Wales is at rock bottom. For over a decade staff have seen real terms cuts to their salaries and simply cannot take any more.
“The Welsh Government must act now to rectify this situation,” said Mr Seppman.
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We recognise the strength of feeling of union members over pay and we have worked hard to address that in a very challenging financial context for Wales.
“We have accepted in full the recommendations made by the independent NHS Pay Review Body and will ensure staff receive both the pay award and back pay as quickly as possible.
“We continue to work in social partnership with all NHS Wales unions to address our shared ambition of pay restoration in the longer term,” they said.
Nurses and other NHS workers in England are also currently being balloted on the pay offer by their respective unions.
Meanwhile, nursing unions in Northern Ireland have this week urged the government there to fund the deal, over renewed concerns about falling out of pay parity with their other UK colleagues.
Scottish nurses remain the best paid across the UK, following a two-year 8% pay deal for 2025-26 and 2026-27.
More on nurse pay in the UK
