HEALTH workers in Northumberland are currently being balloted on whether to strike over pay.

Around 350,000 members of Unison working for more than 250 health trusts and boards across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, are being balloted.

Porters, nurses, security guards, paramedics, cleaners, midwives, occupational therapists and other NHS staff are among those being asked if they want to mount a campaign of industrial action.

Unison have urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to increase the rise of £1,400 awarded to health workers in England earlier in the summer.

Clare Williams, Unison Northern's Regional Secretary, said: "NHS staff are working in very stressful and pressurised environments.

"We are seeing a combination of funding cuts year-on-year to the NHS and one of the highest rates of workforce shortages. We've got a real retention and recruitment issue.

"We are seeing experienced staff leave the NHS at an alarming rate and the impact of all that is people working really hard to deliver high-quality care but in very difficult circumstances."

She added: "Staff have been given a £1,400 pay rise, which equates to about 72p an hour. We've got NHS staff telling Unison that they can't afford to make ends meet financially and we've got NHS employers setting up food banks for staff to support them.

"It really is time for the government and for Rishi Sunak to come back to the table and to talk to Unison and other health organisations about how we can invest in staff and invest in the NHS. 

"Dedicated NHS staff do not want to take strike action, however you can only go on so long raising issues to the government and not being listened to."

NHS workers in other unions, including nurses and ambulance staff, are also being balloted for strikes, threatening a huge outbreak of industrial action later in the year.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "We are giving over one million NHS workers a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year, as recommended by the independent NHS Pay Review Body, on top of 3 per cent last year when pay was frozen in the wider public sector.

"Industrial action is a matter for unions, and we urge them to carefully consider the potential impacts on patients."

The Unison ballot will close for Northumberland members on November 25.