MINISTERS are “turning their backs on nursing,” trade unionists charged today after data showed private-sector workers’ wages increasing at more than twice the rate of those in the public sector.

As the data was published, more NHS staff announced votes on proposed industrial action.

The Office for National Statistics said that while private-sector pay had increased on average by 6.9 per cent in the three months to the end of October, wages in the public sector had risen by just 2.7 per cent.

The disparity is among the largest ever recorded and comes after more than a decade of pay cuts for nurses.

With 100,000 nurses preparing to go on strike for the first time in their lives tomorrow, their union described the data as “yet more evidence of why ministers are wrong to turn their backs on nursing.”

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary Pat Cullen said: “With public-sector salaries lagging so far behind those in the private sector, it’s unsurprising that nurses can’t make ends meet.

“And that’s on top of a decade of real-terms pay cuts.

“When I met the Health Secretary, he once again rebuffed our calls to negotiate and to give nursing staff the pay rise they need to live — and to boost recruitment and retention.

“The workforce crisis has made care unsafe.”

Ms Cullen said that tomorrow “nurses will take to picket lines to fight for their profession and their patients.”

The RCN leader insisted that the government “has the power and means to prevent this action at any point,” but that Health Secretary Steve Barclay had effectively “closed the door” on attempts to avert the nurses’ strike by refusing to discuss pay.

Meanwhile, more NHS medical staff have joined the rebellion against the government’s continuing attack on health workers’ wages today.

Midwives in Wales have voted by more than nine to one in favour of strike action and 300 healthcare workers on Merseyside who are members of the GMB union will strike alongside ambulance crews on December 28.

Royal College of Midwives Wales director Julie Richards said that midwives and maternity support workers were “exhausted, overlooked and undervalued” and that the vote “shows just how desperate they are for policy-makers to listen.”