Ministers risk cutting the survival chances of cancer patients and undoing two decades of progress in lowering death rates unless they tackle the NHS workforce crisis and resolve the pay row, the head of Britain’s biggest cancer charity has warned.
Although efforts have been made to prioritise cancer patients, Michelle Mitchell, the chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said the impact of next week’s planned strikes by nurses and ambulance workers would be cumulative and the NHS would find it “harder and harder” to prevent cancer patients dying early.
Her intervention will pile further pressure on Rishi Sunak, who is already facing calls from health leaders and senior Tories to hold talks over pay with health unions to prevent further strikes. A sixth former Conservative minister, Anne Milton, called on the government to start negotiating on Friday.
Speaking to the Guardian, Mitchell warned current record long waits for cancer care could get even worse – and targets to slash waiting times by 2025 may be missed.
“We strongly urge all parties involved to work together to come to a resolution and to ensure that vital care for cancer patients is not seriously impacted,” she said. “Cancer services are already struggling due to the pandemic and years of chronic workforce shortages.
“Despite the best efforts of NHS staff, cancer waiting times are consistently among the worst on record and plans to bring them down by 2025 are unlikely to be reached.”
On Friday evening, NHS England published figures showing 10,000 staff were off work as a direct result of Thursday’s nurses’ strike. The data also showed 2,452 elective procedures and operations were cancelled, as well as 13,327 outpatient appointments.
“Although we know that the NHS rightly prioritises cancer, the effect of the strikes will be cumulative and it will be harder and harder for hospitals to avoid impact on outcomes for cancer patients,” said Mitchell.
She spoke out before a report due to be published this weekend that is understood to show that cancer death rates have fallen significantly since Cancer Research UK, which has invested £5.4bn in cancer research and treatments, was founded in 2002.
But Mitchell said the failure to recruit and retain enough NHS staff to treat cancer patients risks jeopardising two decades’ of advances against the disease.
“The government must deliver on its commitment to publish a long-term workforce plan, including measures to maximise retention – otherwise we risk undoing all the hard won progress we’ve made over the past 20 years.”
Earlier, Sharon Graham, the head of one of Britain’s biggest unions, Unite, said patients’ lives were being put at risk by the government’s refusal to hold talks.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is planning another strike next Tuesday, which will be followed on Wednesday by a strike by ambulance workers, which includes Unite members.
“Ministers need to give themselves a shake and get into serious pay talks or see this strike spread next week,” said Graham.
“Anyone with a passing knowledge of the NHS can see that this government has brought it to its knees. A decade of pay cuts and a chronic staffing shortage is crushing our NHS and putting patients’ lives at risk.”
Separately, Milton, a former Tory MP and health minister who had been a nurse, told the Guardian the government’s failure to talk to them “just looks really bad”, adding: “I think the government should get around the table” to discuss look again at pay.
It comes after former health ministers Dan Poulter and Steve Brine, as well as former cabinet minister Robert Buckland and Jake Berry, suggested the government should reopen pay talks.
Sarah Atherton, a Conservative MP in Wales and an ex-nurse, also expressed sympathy with striking nurses and suggested it was “in the gift” of the Labour-run Welsh government to offer more than the 5.5% that the pay review body recommended, urging them to “get around the table” with the RCN to discuss pay.
In England, Sunak continued to resist doing that, insisting that it was not right to reopen the pay offer and claiming it was “appropriate and fair”.
Meanwhile, the government is also likely to come under scrutiny over the cost of the strikes. Senior Ministry of Defence officials told MPs that it would bill departments about £4,000 per soldier a week, with up to 2,500 military personnel on standby to step in next week.
They suggested the overall bill could be millions of pounds a month for supporting the NHS, Border Force and other public services.
The RCN leader, Pat Cullen, has warned that action by nurses would escalate unless ministers back down on their refusal to negotiate on pay.
Saffron Cordery, the interim chief executive of NHS Providers, said the first nurses’ strike had a “significant impact” on patients, with about 40% to 60% of routine operations “cancelled in places where the strikes were held”. Next week will be “very challenging” for the NHS, she added.
The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said ministers should have gone back to the pay review body for fresh recommendations when the RCN first balloted for strike action.
“I think at this late stage, the fastest, most effective thing the government could do would be to engage in direct face-to-face negotiations with the Royal College of Nursing, Unison and others on pay,” the Labour MP said after a speech to the Policy Exchange thinktank.
“That would immediately suspend strike action as the unions have promised to do.”
