Nurses have voted against a pay offer from district health boards, and "a week of action" is on the way.

But whether or not there will be a strike is still undecided.

​New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) industrial services manager Cee Payne made the announcement in Wellington on Monday afternoon.

HUSH NAIDOO/UNSPLASH Nurses have been in mediation talks with district health boards since January 31.

Nurses should "get ready for a week of national action starting 9 April," the NZNO said.

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﻿A key next step will be to ballot members on industrial action.

ROSS GIBLIN/STUFF NZNO industrial services manager, Cee Payne announces the potential for nurses to strike.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it was important to move quickly.

"I'd like to see DHBs put forward a process to unlock the impasse which involves an independent panel being established which will review the barriers and make recommendations to both parties.

"Our health system, the people who use it and the people that work in it deserve our full support to resolve this issue."

NURSE FLORENCE/FACEBOOK Nurses leaving their stories on a new Facebook page (since renamed to Florence Smith) to show what working in the health sector is really like.

THE OFFER

﻿District Health Boards (DHBs) had offered 27,000 of its members, which also include midwives and healthcare workers, a 2 per cent annual increase in salary, a $1050 lump sum payment, and a commitment to a pay equity settlement no later than July 1, 2019.

NZNO took the offer to its members last week.

Payne said nurses had suffered from "severe underfunding of the health system", and struggled under an increase in health care needs, an aging population and work force, and rising costs in the delivery of health care.

The organisation wants the DHB to agree to a collective agreement that supported its nurses and its professional standard of care, she said.

"We will ensure that we meet our good faith obligation and collective bargaining. The issues that we're facing today, for our members, have arisen from a decade of severe underfunding of the health system."

There were plans for further action on April 9.

"These rallies will be an opportunity for nurses to demonstrate their dissatisfaction into nurses' pay."

"Increased work loads, increased patient acuity (meaning our patients are sicker when they arrive at the hospital), stress, fatigue and lack of job satisfaction" had increased over the last decade. Payne said that had contributed to high staff turn-over and low morale.

"Other issues are impacting on members in the workplace. These include: inadequate levels of staffing, unhealthy shift rostering and under-valuation of nurses' work."

Industrial action was "likely" but also "the last resort" but Payne said she was hopeful the Government and employers would "step into this dispute" to address pay and staffing issues.

"Nurses feel their skills, their knowledge and the work they do is under-valued and not sufficiently recognised by DHBs.

"We will remain open to any meaningful discussions with the DHB employer and the negotiation team."

DHBs TO CALL 'URGENT MEETING'

DHB spokesman Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the latest offer was "right at the limits of affordability".

Contingency planning was already underway in case of strike action, but Bloomfield said DHBs still hoped to avoid that.



"Nurses are highly respected and essential members of the health team and we don't want them thinking they have to take industrial action to be heard.

"Obviously we're disappointed that our latest offer has been rejected but DHBs will ask for an urgent meeting with the NZNO to find a way forward."

Underfunding was an issue, he said.

"Over the last five years we haven't seen a per capita increase in health funding.

"More funding has gone in to the health sector year on year but we've also had quite big population increases and we've had more pressure [on the sector] coming in."

Asked how DHBs would cover services if there was a strike particularly in the face of a global shortage on midwives, Bloomfield said: "that's something we need to work through as part of our contingency planning".

But opposition health spokesman Michael Woodhouse said the situation was the current Government's mess to clean up.

"It comes as no surprise that the New Zealand Nurses Organisation has rejected the DHBs' offer of a 2 per cent pay increase given the very high expectations created by this Government.

"Labour spent years talking about how the health sector was underfunded and as a result created the expectation that nurses were in for a big bump in their wages," he said.

"Yet the first thing it does when it comes into Government is throw $2.8 billion at tertiary students leaving little money to invest in health and other important areas."

Health Minister David Clark had to ensure DHBs had the confidence to make a higher offer to nurses by signalling future funding.

"And he must do it quickly, before nurses go on strike for the first time in decades. Strike action just as we're approaching winter would cripple our health system and put lives at risk," said Woodhouse.

DHBs had received no health funding envelope this year - a conservative indication of funding, which they would typically get ahead of the budget, to help with future planning.

A Facebook page titled, 'New Zealand, please hear our voice' has gained momentum since launching on March 4, with many nurses venting about their struggle to make ends meet in a highly stressful, understaffed environment.

A petition for safer working conditions for nurses has received more than 20,500 signatures.

The petition calls for: pay that attracts and retains staff, training for crisis situations, more access to security guards, action around claims of bullying, and an investigation into management culture.