A band five nurse is an entry-level role for newly qualified registered nurses under the NHS Agenda for Change pay system.
Wes Streeting, the then health secretary, announced in February that all band five nurses in England would be eligible to have their pay grade reviewed, with the Government providing funding for employers to cover salary increases.
The union welcomed the review, complaining that some staff spend decades, and sometimes their whole career, at band five, despite gaining the skills and responsibilities of staff further up the pay scale.
Prof Ranger said the RCN was waiting for the “final plan” on how the review would be implemented, but would expect it in the coming weeks.
“Tough challenge” for new Health Secretary
She said that nursing was the “absolute backbone of this country”, and that her union would be “absolutely clear and unapologetic” in holding employers to account.
“We expect our profession to be sitting at a band six,” she added. “We expect a period of consolidation… but we want the staff nurse role to sit as a band six. We will be looking at the evidence.
“This is the best opportunity nursing has had for decades, because this money is not going to be coming from those organisations’ budget, it is going to be coming from the Government.
“This is the first time that we can start to elevate nursing.”
Asked whether there was an appetite among her members for a ballot on industrial action, Prof Ranger told the Press Association: “Not at this moment. We have to go into this scheme with good grace.”
She added: “We’ve come up with a scheme where, for the first time, nursing is singled out, therefore we want to give it a chance. Both the NHS, the Department of Health, and us have to enter this with good faith, that is the spirit in which we will be starting this.
“But we need to be really, really clear, we are deciding and agreeing to do that, but that does not mean that we are afraid to strike. We just don’t want to at this moment in time, because we want to give this scheme a chance and enter in this in good faith.”
And she warned that James Murray, the new Health Secretary, would face a “tough challenge”.
She added: “I very much hope that this health secretary will continue and be relentless in the progress that we need… But if he doesn’t value nursing, he will fail.”