Nurses in England will strike for 48 hours at the start of next month, their biggest strike to date, as the Royal College of Nursing warns that ‘no services will be exempt’.
The action, scheduled to take place from the morning of Wednesday 1 March until the morning of Friday 3 March, will take place at 128 NHS employers in England next month, as the government continues to refuse to negotiate the 2022-23 pay deal.
Pat Cullen, RCN general secretary, emphasised that Rishi Sunak owed nurses urgent action: “It is with a heavy heart that I have today asked even more nursing staff to join this dispute. These strikes will not just run for longer and involve more people but will leave no area of the NHS unaffected. Patients and nurses alike did not want this to happen.
NHS trust leaders will be working flat out to ensure patient safety and provision of vital services, but they can only do so much by themselves. The government needs to talk to the unions urgently about pay for this financial year” – Sir Julian Hartley, NHS Providers
“By refusing to negotiate with nurses, the prime minister is pushing even more people into the strike. He must listen to NHS leaders and not let this go ahead.
“I will do whatever I can to ensure patient safety is protected. At first, we asked thousands to keep working during the strikes but it’s clear that is only prolonging the dispute. This action must not be in vain – the prime minister owes them an answer.”
Previous industrial action by nurses has not included key areas such as A&E, cancer care and intensive care, but the new strikes will see those members walking out for the first time.
Unions agreed around 5,000 exemptions locally with NHS hospitals, and several national derogations. A statement from the RCN said “This time there will be no wide-ranging derogations in place. Services previously ‘derogated’ will not be to the same extent. We are working directly to ensure that these services are reduced to an absolute minimum.
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“It is always the employer’s responsibility to ensure life-preserving services, so we expect life-preserving care to be provided by members of the wider workforce and other clinical professions.”
Ministers accused the union of putting patients at risk. “We are working closely with NHS England on contingency plans, but this action will inevitably cause further disruption,” said health secretary Steve Barclay.
Sir Julian Hartley, chief executive at NHS Providers said: “This is the most worrying escalation of strikes yet. With more than 140,000 appointments already postponed as a result of the walkouts, this is a step no one wants to take.
“A continuous 48-hour strike with no exceptions in A&E, intensive care units or cancer care services will be a huge blow – especially as even more trusts will be affected this time.
“With further strikes by ambulance workers planned in the coming days and weeks, and junior doctors’ walkouts also likely, trust leaders are now in a near-impossible position. They’re deeply concerned the escalation could hamper their efforts to tackle care backlogs and compromise continuity of care for some.
We share the prime minister’s ambition to reduce waiting lists but the government’s apparent refusal to discuss or compromise on pay is jeopardising his public commitment to reduce waiting times“ – Matthew Taylor, NHS Confederation
Without a resolution, this ongoing dispute could lead to serious, long-term damage to the NHS. We understand that frontline staff feel they’ve had no choice but to take this action due to challenges including the high cost of living, workforce shortages and below-inflation pay rises.
“Trust leaders will be working flat out to ensure patient safety and provision of vital services, but they can only do so much by themselves. The government needs to talk to the unions urgently about pay for this financial year.”
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation said: “The stakes have just got higher and NHS leaders are becoming increasingly concerned about the escalating waves of industrial action. They are desperate for a resolution so that they can continue to recover their services for patients.
“NHS leaders are managing the individual days of strike action, but we are storing up problems as waiting lists grow and patients wait longer for treatment that could see their conditions deteriorate. This has drifted into dangerous ‘business as usual’ territory now and we need the government to break the cycle.
“We share the prime minister’s ambition to reduce waiting lists but the government’s apparent refusal to discuss or compromise on pay is jeopardising his public commitment to reduce waiting times. Increasingly, the government’s policies on NHS pay and on NHS waiting lists are becoming mutually incompatible.
“The prime minister has a choice to make, which is to either seek to settle the dispute with the trade unions or to wave goodbye to his own pledge to cut NHS waiting lists.”
Progress in Scotland
In Scotland, a new pay offer made yesterday by the Scottish government is being considered by unions and strike action is paused.
Colin Poolman, RCN Scotland director, said: “There is no doubt that it was the strength of the strike mandate in Scotland that brought the Scottish government back to the table. Negotiations are the preferable way to resolve disputes so it was the correct decision to see these negotiations through to their conclusion.
“We now have a new offer for consideration and, as has been the case before, it is you, our members who will make the decision about what happens next. That process begins with the RCN Scotland Board looking at the offer in detail.”
Specifics of what is the third revised Scottish offer to the RCN, the Royal College of Midwives and the GMB union, include an accelerated timetable for 2023-24 pay round and a one-off payment equivalent to three months’ value of the difference between this year’s and next year’s pay offers.
Unison head of health Sara Gorton said: “Scottish ministers clearly value health workers and know better pay can help improve staffing levels. This is in stark contrast to the Westminster government’s shoddy treatment of NHS employees.
“Health workers in Scotland had a bigger pay rise this year, putting a stop to the threat of strikes. Now they’re set to get a decent April wage increase, and on time too.”
Unison said that, if accepted, the Scottish government’s pay offer would see most NHS workers receive pay increases of more than 8% in 2023/24. That would mean that over the two years, nurses in Scotland will receive a pay rise of more than 14% and the lowest-paid NHS workers an increase of close to 20%.
The RCN said that “progress has been seen” in Wales and as a result, strike action is also paused. In Northern Ireland, no further strike dates have been agreed upon but cannot be ruled out.
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