Patients will suffer if ministers bow to nurses’ demands to increase pay, the health secretary warned as tens of thousands of NHS staff prepared to walk out today.
Writing exclusively in The Independent, Steve Barclay said any boost to wages would “take billions of pounds away from where we need it most”.
He wrote: “Unaffordable pay hikes will mean cutting patient care and stoking the inflation that would make us all poorer.”
But the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has criticised him for “pitting nurses against patients”, branding the comments “a new low for the health secretary”.
An RCN spokesperson said: “Patient care is suffering because his government cut nurses’ wages for over a decade, causing record nursing vacancies in the NHS. Paying nurses fairly and patient care go hand in hand.”
Tens of thousands of nurses are likely to strike across 55 trusts. NHS data shows 4,567 operations and 25,009 outpatient appointments were cancelled during the nurse’s strikes on 15 and 20 December.
It comes as rail workers will join civil servants and teachers walking out on what has been billed as a “national day of action” on 1 February.
