The Australian Nurses Federation will proceed with industrial action on Wednesday, beginning with a ban on the practice of double shifts, and then overtime and potentially more if the deadlock on its pay and ratio dispute with the government is not resolved a week later.

Australian Nursing Federation WA state secretary Janet Reah, who defeated rival Samantha Fenn by just 56 votes of 4400 cast in Monday’s ballot to appoint a new secretary, told Liam Bartlett on 6PR Mornings the ANF website crashed after overwhelming feedback from members in response to the WA government’s ‘olive branch’ offer on Tuesday.

“We’ve had over 2800 responses regarding whether we go ahead with a ban on double shifts,” Reah said, adding members were also unhappy at WA’s current worker-patient ratio.

Tap PLAY to hear Reah discuss the latest industrial action

“The plan at this point is they need to do an audit of staffing levels on the wards currently and then compare them to what Victoria’s ratio is, for the similar amount of wards.”

Image: Cameron Myles/WAtoday