NHS bosses have implored ministers to “do all you can” to end the strikes that are disrupting care for patients and help rescue the service from its “vicious cycle” of overload and delays.
The NHS Confederation issued its plea on the day nurses in England went on strike for the third time, as they seek a bigger pay rise for 2022-23 than the £1,400 on offer.
It urged ministers and health unions to find a compromise in their pay dispute, as the GMB union announced plans for four more strikes in ambulance services in England and Wales during February and March.
The first stoppage, on 6 February, will pose a particular problem for the NHS because nurses are already striking that day.f
The confederation, which represents NHS trusts in England, said each strike was forcing hospitals to cancel thousands of outpatient appointments and operations, setting back the service’s efforts to tackle the backlog of 7.2 million people waiting to start routine treatment.
“Ahead of the next round of strikes our message to the government is to give the NHS a fighting chance and do all you can to bring an end to this damaging dispute,” said Matthew Taylor, the organisation’s chief executive. “The prime minister must not allow the standoff in the wider public sector to hold back a deal being reached in the NHS.”
The government minister Robert Jenrick said public sector workers could not receive “significant” pay rises because inflation, which fell to 10.5%, from 10.7% last month, according to figures released on Wednesday, was only starting to ease.
The Home Office minister told Sky News: “I think what you see with inflation today means if the international factors are beginning to tentatively work in the right direction, the worst thing we could do domestically would be to significantly increase public sector pay and to then entrench inflation in the British economy, and get into a kind of wage spiral that would be very detrimental to the economy … We have to approach this with great caution because inflation is the big evil.”
The stoppages on Wednesday and Thursday are being led by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and were likely to result in hospitals postponing 4,500 non-urgent operations and 25,000 outpatient appointments, Taylor said.
The RCN has demanded a rise of 5% above inflation but made clear it will compromise if Steve Barclay, the health secretary, embarks on detailed pay negotiations.
It announced on Monday that nurses would strike again on 6-7 February, this time at 73 trusts in England and also in Wales, if Barclay did not start talking.
That would take the total number of activities that have been rearranged as a direct result of NHS strikes so far this winter to 10,000 cases of surgery and more than 50,000 appointments, Taylor added.
Taylor’s remarks came as Barclay warned frontline personnel that any improved pay deal for this year would take money away from patient care.
In an article for the Independent, he said: “With fewer than three months left of this financial year, it is time to look ahead, not back. I recognise the cost of living pressures on NHS staff and I know how hard they work. But if we provide unaffordable pay rises to NHS staff, we will take billions of pounds away from where we need it most. Unaffordable pay hikes will mean cutting patient care and stoking the inflation that would make us all poorer.”
His article appears to confirm the Guardian’s disclosure last week that, while Barclay has privately conceded that staff will have to get more than the £1,400 planned, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has told him that the money would have to come from within the existing health budget and not in the form of extra funding from the Treasury.
The RCN called Barclay’s comments “a new low” and accused him of “pitting nurses against patients”.
Taylor said disruption caused by the strikes was undermining hospitals’ success in tackling the care backlog, in particular the number of patients who have faced very long delays for treatment.
Highlighting the many challenges being faced by hospitals, especially the record demand for A&E care, he added: “The NHS has shown what it can do by eliminating two-year waits against this most challenging of backdrops. The NHS has also been making inroads into the 78-week target and continues to do so.
“But to further help, the government needs to give the NHS a fighting chance by reaching a compromise with the unions and bringing an end to the dispute. The NHS has coped admirably on strike days, but there is a cumulative effect and we must hope that the government and unions can quickly find common ground for the benefit of patients.”
Pat Cullen, the RCN general secretary and chief executive, said: “Today’s strike action by nursing staff is a modest escalation before a sharp increase in under three weeks from now. If a week is a long time for Rishi Sunak, three weeks is the time he needs to get this resolved.
“People aren’t dying because nurses are striking. Nurses are striking because people are dying. That is how severe things are in the NHS and it is time the prime minister led a fight for its future.”
