Nurses across the NHS will strike in the run-up to Christmas, threatening further disruption to healthcare in much of Britain at the busiest time of the year for hospitals that are already struggling to bring down record waiting lists.

The Royal College of Nursing announced on Friday that some of its members would walk out on December 15 and 20 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Pat Cullen, the union’s general secretary, said ministers had refused to open formal talks over pay and patient safety and had effectively “chosen strike action” when they had “the power and the means to stop this”.

The union’s members will be in the vanguard of a wave of industrial action that looks set to spread across the health service and many other parts of the public sector over the winter, despite tentative signs of progress in resolving the long-running dispute in the rail industry.