HUNDREDS of nurses and trade unionists marched through Portsmouth this weekend in protest against the continued 1 per cent public-sector pay cap.

The rally was organised by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) as part of its “summer of action” to get the cap lifted.

The RCN voted to ballot for industrial action for the first time in its 112-year history at its annual Congress in March.

Tory MPs voted against a Labour amendment to the Queen’s Speech to drop the pay cap last month — while the Scottish government has promised to unilaterally lift the cap in the face of pressure from nurses who voted for strike action.

The RCN warns that a number of nurses are using foodbanks and relying on pay day-loans as their wages have fallen by 14 per cent in real terms as a result of the seven-year pay freeze.

RCN Southampton branch chairman Ged Swinton, who has worked as an NHS nurse for 27 years, told demanstrators: “I have never seen morale as low as it is right now in the NHS.

“The big driver behind that is not the money but what the cap on public-sector pay is doing to recruitment and retention.”

More than 40,000 nursing vacancies have built up in recent years and 83 per cent of NHS trusts in England report long-term problems in filling basic nursing posts, he added.

RCN Portsmouth branch secretary Liz Jeremiah told the Star: “It’s not only right to pay us a decent wage, it is in the interests of the public, Trust executives and taxpayers.”

A “Scrap the Cap” demonstration will take place outside the Department of Health from 4pm on Thursday.