NURSES will provide “critical care” for patients in the event of strike action — but only a decent pay rise will stop a continuing exodus of tens of thousands from the NHS, their union warned today.

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) leader Pat Cullen spoke out as 300,000 nurses across Britain began voting on strike action over pay for the first time in the RCN’s 106-year history.

The NHS has more than 40,000 nurse vacancies in England alone with low pay, staff shortages and unmanageable workloads forcing staff to seek other, better-paid jobs.

Nurses want a pay increase equal to inflation, currently 10 per cent, plus 5 per cent. 

The government has proposed a 3 per cent increase though it contends that 5 per cent has been proposed.

Ms Cullen said: “Nurses will do nothing to add to the risk that patients are facing every single day as a consequence of not having those nurses in the system to look after them.

“We continue to provide critical services throughout any strike.”

But she said nurses are taking action to “save the health service,” and that they were already “struggling to provide safe care for their patients” due to staff shortages.

She said: “Nurses have made every attempt to get government to listen to the fact that there’s hundreds of thousands of nursing vacancies across this country and nurses are struggling to provide safe care for their patients.

“The only way that we’re going to address those vacancies and ensure that we recruit nurses into our health services and hold on to the brilliant services that we’ve got is if we pay them a decent wage.

“We’re very clear. Our position is that in order to address the crisis within the profession, it’s 5 per cent above the rate of inflation.

“If this government does not address that, then our fear is that we’ll continue to lose the great nurses we’ve got.

“We’re losing thousands of nurses from our health service and that’s against a backdrop of thousands and thousands of vacancies.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly dodged questions on whether he would support striking nurses, saying he does not want strikes to go ahead.