Ministers are facing calls to ask NHS pay reviewers to reconsider their recommendations as an “elegant” way to end the strikes by offering higher rises.
Conservative chairman of the Commons Health Committee Steve Brine said it would be a “sensible answer” to ending the biggest strike in NHS history.
Thousands of nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland walked out on Thursday, with plans to strike again on Tuesday.
Rishi Sunak is refusing to negotiate on pay with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) despite the union threatening to take action again next month with no end in sight.
The Prime Minister is instead sticking to the recommendation made by the NHS pay review body before inflation peaked amid the war in Ukraine.
Jerry Cope, a former head of the body, said ministers should ask the “fiercely independent” group to think again because their decision could be “lagged”.
He said the “world was a rather different place” when they made their considerations and “some of the evidence they considered was probably out of date by the time it was published”
“That may be a possibility for a solution for this apparently intractable problem,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today.
“I think they (ministers) should ask the pay review body to reconsider what they did last year and not reopen last year because I think it’s too late to do that, but actually say I want you to do a very quick turnaround for this year’s recommendations and I want you to take account of anything you might have missed last time round.”
Mr Brine added his name to the Tory MPs suggesting ministers should negotiate with the RCN on pay by asking the reviewers to look again.
“Everyone needs to cool it and I think sending it back to the pay review body to have a look would be a sensible answer,” he told the BBC’s World At One Programme.
He suggested this would be a way for the RCN to step back from next week’s action.
Pressed if movement on pay from the Government could resolve the situation, he said: “I would agree. That’s the elegant way to make that movement.”
The union has been demanding a pay rise of around 19% but has indicated it is willing to accept a lower offer if ministers agree to negotiate, but they have so far refused.
The RCN has been calling for a pay rise at 5% above the RPI measure of inflation, which was running at 7.5% when they submitted their request to the pay review board in March.
But inflation has since soared, with RPI standing at 14.2% in September.
So far Downing Street is rejecting calls to ask the pay reviewers to think again.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Certainly no plans to tell the independent body what to do.”
Ministers are hiding behind the pay review body to wriggle out of any responsibility for the mess they've created— Sara Gorton, Unison
Unison’s head of health Sara Gorton said: “There’s no need to start another long-winded evidence round. A wage boost is needed now, not months down the line.
“The last two of the pay review body’s recommendations sat on ministerial desks for months.
“Health workers won’t have any confidence in a repeat of the process that’s failed to deliver for them, the NHS or patients so far. Ministers are hiding behind the pay review body to wriggle out of any responsibility for the mess they’ve created.
“The only solution to the current unrest is for proper and genuine pay talks between the Government and unions. Only then can the worsening crisis in the NHS be tackled, and that must start with a wage boost sufficient to convince experienced staff to stay.”
