More than 300,000 members of Britain's biggest nurses' union will go to the polls on Thursday for a strike to demand higher pay, the largest in the union's 106-year history.

 This is reported by Reuters.

 The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said it was forced to take the step after years of real pay cuts kept people from joining the state-funded NHS, leaving huge staffing gaps across the service .

 "We are understaffed, undervalued and underpaid. For years our profession has been pushed to the brink and now patient safety is paying the price," said RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Pat Cullen.

 The union has said it wants a 5% above-inflation pay rise to offset real wage cuts as members struggle to cope with a sharp rise in the cost of living.

 The union boss said below-inflation pay meant workers could not afford to stay in or join the profession, adding that "patient care is at risk" due to thousands of unfilled nursing jobs across Britain.

 A spokesman for the government's Department of Health and Social Care said he hoped nurses would carefully consider the impact any strike would have on patients.

 "We value the hard work of NHS nurses and are doing everything we can to support them," the spokesman said, recalling previous pay rises in the sector.

 The NHS, which is still recovering from the damage to services caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, is facing its worst-ever staffing crisis amid a backlog of healthcare delivery.

 The NHS, which has been providing free care at the point of care since 1948, has also seen a record rise in the number of people waiting for routine hospital treatment to start and longer waiting times in A&E departments.