NURSES have backed strikes for the first time in NHS history.

The Royal College of Nursing unveiled plans yesterday for a series of protests and warned that walkouts could follow.

1 Nine in ten members of the Royal College of Nursing who were canvassed backed industrial action over the pay row Credit: Getty Images

Nine in ten backed industrial action in a non-binding poll of union members and four in five want strikes.

Union leader Janet Davies told the RCN Annual Congress in Liverpool that nurses had suffered a 14 per cent pay cut in real terms since 2010.

A formal pay cap of one per cent was introduced in 2015. Angry delegates passed a motion backing a formal ballot after the General Election if the cap is not axed.

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Only 52,000 of the RCN’s 270,000 members took part in the online survey. But more than half of nurses working in the NHS will need to vote in an official ballot for industrial action to be legal.

Ms Davies told the conference: “The RCN has never been on strike. We have never even balloted our members.

"But 41,000 of you feel so strongly about the way you’re being asked to pay for the UK’s economic problems that you’re prepared to take this unprecedented step."

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