Nurses across the UK have voted to strike in their first national action over a pay dispute, a media report said on Sunday.

The strike vote of more than 300,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) was the largest in the union’s 106-year history.

“Our strike action will serve both the patients and the nurses – we have their support in this,” Secretary Pat Cullen said.

Although the count is still ongoing, the local PA news agency reported that RCN officials believed enough members had voted for the winter strike, which is due to take place in a matter of weeks, possibly before Christmas.

The RCN is campaigning for a wage increase of five percent above rising inflation.

The exact nature of the strike has yet to be determined but will likely disrupt operations and appointments, even as patients already face record waiting lists.

“This will result in most services being suspended and pickets set up across the country,” a union source told the Observer newspaper.

It also comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt already face the daunting challenge of plugging a £50 billion ($57 billion) hole in public finances.

Britain, grappling with a cost of living crisis, has seen a spate of industrial action in recent months.

Tens of thousands of workers in a variety of sectors – from the postal and justice sectors to ports and telecoms – have gone on strike across Britain since the summer.

The RCN said there were record jobs for carers as 25,000 carers across the UK left the Nursing and Midwifery Council register last year.

Recent analysis showed that an experienced nurse’s salary has fallen by 20 per cent in real terms since 2010, and the RCN said the goodwill and expertise of nurses was being ‘exploited’ by governments across the UK.