The government on Thursday rejected the case for giving nurses a better pay deal as they staged a historic strike and some Conservative MPs voiced their support for higher pay.
Nurses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have walked out on the first ever national strike organized by the Royal College of Nursing, which demanded a 19 per cent pay rise.
The strike action, led by the RCN, is part of a series of strikes across the UK amid the cost of living crisis. Postal workers staged another day of action on Thursday and rail workers are due to strike again on Friday.
The nurses’ strike affected around 65 NHS trusts in England and Wales and a further 11 in Northern Ireland.
Around 100,000 nurses have walked out and the government has estimated that around 70,000 NHS appointments, procedures and operations will not be carried out in England.
Health Minister Steve Barclay said the government “highly values” nurses, but he rejected the RCN’s call for a 19 per cent pay rise.
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He told the BBC: “I think asking for 19 per cent at a time when many viewers are facing significant cost-of-living pressures is not affordable given the situation the economy is facing.”
In July, the government accepted recommendations from independent pay review bodies covering public sector workers. As a result, most NHS staff in England received a flat £1,400 pay rise backdated to April. This represents an increase of just under 4 per cent in average basic pay for nurses, or 5.5 per cent for those newly qualified.
Downing Street said there were “no plans” to revisit the pay review bodies’ recommendations.
However, some Conservative MPs have called for better pay for nurses. Former health secretary Dan Poulter called on the government to “improve the current provision for nurses”.
Former Tory party chairman Jake Berry said the government “will have to improve its offer” to striking workers.
Meanwhile, Steve Brain, chairman of the parliamentary health and select committee, suggested ministers should encourage the independent body to “revisit” its pay recommendations.
“I think the way out is to protect the integrity of the process, to go back and ask them to look again,” he told the BBC’s World At One programme. “Everyone needs to cool it and I think sending it back to the pay review body to look at it would be a reasonable response.”
Speaking to the website Politics Home, former justice minister Robert Buckland argued that “there needs to be a middle ground” between the independent body’s pay recommendation and the 19 per cent pay demands of nursing unions.
“While I think 19 per cent is completely unattainable, whether it’s a time for a discussion about a slightly different pay arrangement – I think there’s merit in that,” he said.
Pat Cullen, general secretary of the RCN, has hinted that the union may be prepared to drop its demands for a 19 per cent pay rise if ministers open pay talks.
RCN members in Scotland are currently voting on whether to accept a pay proposal that would add around 7.5 per cent to Scottish NHS wages. The offer was rejected on Thursday by members of the GMB union.
Cullen warned that strikes on Thursday and next Tuesday “could be the start of a longer period of action” if the government continued to refuse formal pay talks, saying it was “tragic” that ministers had decided “not to they’re talking to us.”
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Dame Ruth May, England’s chief nurse, joined the column outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London, according to The Times, and called on the government to negotiate with the RCN.
“I support all nurses and I want to support them in using their voice, whether it’s out there on the wards or here on the columns,” she said.
Strikes over pay and working practices that have crippled rail services for most of this week will resume on Friday, with more than 40,000 members of the RMT union expected to walk out.
The RMT is still opposed to a deal with Network Rail, the infrastructure operator, after union TSSA said on Thursday its members had voted to accept a pay offer worth between 9 and 11 per cent over two years.
The move piles pressure on the RMT, whose members rejected the same deal this week on the advice of union leaders.
Andrew Haynes, chief executive of Network Rail, said there had been signs of a “breakdown” of RMT industrial action this week, estimating that around 2,000 of the union’s 40,000 members had turned up for work this week, many more , than in previous strike days.
Meanwhile, the Public and Commercial Services Union has announced an escalation of strike action, with driving instructors at seven more sites in England due to join strikes at 10 other centers in December and January.
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