A lifelong campaigner and activist from Bolton has become president of Britain’s biggest public sector trade union.

Andrea Egan, who was already serving as public sector worker union Unison’s vice president, was confirmed in her role at a conference at the end of last month.

Having worked in local government for more than 30 years Ms Egan is already well known in Bolton for her role leading campaigners across the borough for better pay and conditions for her fellow workers, which she now hopes to build on at national level.

Ms Egan said: “I believe that, through organising and winning for them, we will convince more people to join the union and together we can stand up to the government.”

In recent months, Ms Egan has lead campaigner calling for Bolton and other Greater Manchester boroughs to pay workers the minimum wage, has called on dinner ladies to be brought back “in house” by local authorities and has called for more support for families in fuel poverty.

She has also made frequent statements in support of health workers at Royal Bolton Hospital.

Serving alongside her will be NHS workers Libby Nolan and Amerit Rait, who will both become Unison vice presidents having been chosen by the union’s national executive council at a national conference in June.

Mr Rait is a manager at St Mary’s Hospital in London and has been active in Unison since 2015, having been a young members officers, treasurer and assistant branch secretary, while Ms Nolan is a nurse practitioner for cardiac surgery, in Morriston Hospital in Swansea.

She joined the union when it was still known as NUPE in 1983 when starting her nurse training and became a steward the same year.

Ms Nolan currently assistant branch secretary of UNISON’s Swansea Bay Healthcare Branch and was recently re-elected to the health service group executive, on which she’s served for six years.

Together the three of them, alongside general secretary Christina McAnea, will lead a union of more the 1.3million members working across the health service, in education, for local authorities and all over the public sector.