Strikes UK – latest: Health secretary says ‘patients will pay the price’ as nurses prepare to walk out

Union criticises Steve Barclay for pitting nurses against patients in ‘new low’

Teachers and nurses announce more strike action in pay disputes

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.

Key Points

• Health secretary tells striking NHS nurses: Take the money and patients will pay the price
• Patients warned of widespread disruption ahead of strikes

[18 January 2023 06:46 · Shweta Sharma]

Thousands of nurses go on strike across England

Thousands of nurses across England are going on strike as a bitter pay dispute with the Government continues but the Health Secretary has warned “unaffordable” wage rises “will mean cutting patient care”.

Nursing staff from more than 55 NHS trusts will take part in industrial action on Wednesday and Thursday following two days of action in December.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has announced that two further, bigger strikes will be held next month, while the GMB union is expected to announce further ambulance worker strike dates on Wednesday afternoon.

[18 January 2023 07:08 · Shweta Sharma]

Record levels of NHS staff resign as nurses say they are ‘broken’

A record number of NHS staff have quit as better pay and work-life balance drive health workers out, new data has revealed.

Nurses have said they are “truly broken” as 42,400 staff voluntarily quit their NHS jobs in quarter two of last year – higher than any quarter over the last decade.

This week a special investigation by The Independent revealed how the NHS crisis is escalating across all areas of the health service. Dr Simon Walsh, from the doctors’ union the British Medical Association (BMA), said the health service was “in unprecedented territory, where harm is actually occurring week after week”.

Read Rebecca Thomas’ report.

[18 January 2023 07:41 · Shweta Sharma]

Union leader says staff is giving loud message that ‘NHS is a crisis'

Pat Cullen, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, that the government is digging into their trenches by not facing the reality that NHS is a crisis.

“What our nursing staff are saying to the Royal College of Nursing is that they will keep going, they are the voice of the patient and this is about our patients fundamentally, that’s what the strike is about,” he told Good Morning Britain.

The government continued to “not face the reality of listening to the clinical staff that are giving them a loud message: The NHS is in a crisis,” she said.

“Our staff are working in a crisis every single minute of the day, so to ignore that is living in a parallel universe from those staff that are trying every day to battle their way through what is really, really, really difficult conditions to work in.”

She added: “Let’s all get into a room and sit down and have realistic conversations about how we’re going to address the crisis within the health service.”