The health service “can’t cope” without nurses who are “determined” to press on with strikes even if a pay rise for NHS workers goes ahead on Tuesday, union leaders have said.
Services across England were braced for “exceptionally low” staffing as part of the biggest walkout yet over the bank holiday.
But the health secretary Steve Barclay accused nurses of taking premature and disrespectful action, just hours before a meeting that could deliver salary increases for many.
On Tuesday, the NHS Staff Council, made up of health unions, employers and government representatives, will decide whether to accept a five per cent pay offer from ministers.
The offer has been rejected by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Unite unions, but accepted by a number of others.
Pat Cullen, leader of the RCN, denied support for strikes among her members would “crumble” if the pay rise goes ahead, saying: “These are very determined people”.
“The hundreds of nurses I met today at five different hospitals had the energy and determination for the months ahead. The government must not underestimate their resolve. The majority of our members voted to reject the deal and to keep campaigning for something better,” she said.
“Tuesday’s meeting with Steve Barclay appears a foregone conclusion. Different unions and different professions came to different, but respectable, conclusions on this pay offer. The deal being accepted by others does not alter the clear fact that nursing staff, as the largest part of the NHS workforce, remain in dispute with the government over unfair pay and unsafe staffing.”
Earlier on Monday she told BBC Breakfast the walkouts proved that the NHS “can’t cope without nursing staff, that is abundantly clear”.
She called on general managers in the NHS to “signal immediately to government the importance of nursing – and how critical it is to get this dispute resolved”.
Ms Cullen also hit back at Mr Barclay’s comments, accusing him of “disrespect” for not entering face-to-face talks with the RCN on how to end the strike.
She said she had had “absolutely” no discussions with Mr Barclay or his officials over the weekend.
“(This strike) ends by getting into a room and putting more money on the table for our brilliant nurses,” she said.
In an interview with The Independent over the weekend, she warned the government could face years of strikes by nurses if it did not find a way to resolve the crisis.
Thousands of nurses walked out at 8pm on Sunday in what has been described by the RCN as the “biggest strike yet” because it includes staff from emergency departments, intensive care and cancer care for the first time.
Ms Cullen said nurses on strike would return to help patients if emergencies arose.
She said: "I won't even have to ask those nurses to return to work, they will return at their own volition.
"They don't turn their back on patients, they will continue to do what they need to do."
However, Nick Hulme, chief executive of the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while an exemption to the strike had been agreed for Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) services at Colchester Hospital, nurses had refused to work.
He told Times Radio: “Unfortunately, despite that exemption, the nurses still chose not to come in. They're not obliged to come in, even if asked to come in by ourselves and the RCN. So we were in a position where we had to significantly reduce the capacity on that ITU. Down to the fact we could only admit one patient.”
The 28-hour action will end just before midnight today. Last week, a High Court judge ruled it would be unlawful for it to continue into Tuesday as originally planned.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, warned the strikes had “taken a heavy toll” as he urged unions to accept the pay deal.
“We are relieved it's only a one-day strike - initially it was going to be two - and we're grateful to the RCN for putting in place a rising number of mitigations specifically agreed with individual hospitals in order to protect life-and-limb services," he told Sky News.
“If it hadn't been for the action that the nurses, the paramedics, other groups took, then they wouldn't have had the pay deal which is going to be discussed tomorrow, and that pay deal comprises a fairly significant back-dated sum and also for five per cent for this year.”
He added: "It's been the togetherness, the solidarity of the trade unions that's got them the progress they have achieved, otherwise they would have had a much smaller settlement.
"I think our view now is that given that most staff have voted in favour of this deal, it is time to accept it.”
Dr Vin Diwakar, NHS England’s medical director for national transformation, told the BBC’s Today programme there would be an “impact on cancer services other than those where there are life and limb-threatening services needed”.
