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Rishi Sunak is under increasing pressure to negotiate with striking nurses after four former Tory ministers joined health service leaders in calling for a way out of the escalating dispute.
On a day England’s Chief Nursing Officer joined the picket line, the Prime Minister and Health Secretary, Steve Barclayhave been implored to turn around and ask the NHS Pay Review Body (PRB) to reconsider the rise it recommended earlier this year.
The idea gained momentum during the first NHS-wide nurses’ strike, which led to the cancellation of thousands of appointments and outpatient operations in England, Wales and Ireland North.
Members of the public put on noisy displays of support for nurses on the picket lines on Thursday, backing them in their fight for a wage hike that takes into account soaring inflation that has eroded living standards.
The Royal College of Feeding with milk (RCN) has threatened to stage walkouts for months to come unless ministers start negotiating a better deal than the £1,400 a head, which Sunak and Barclay say is the maximum they can get allow and is in line with the conclusions of the February PRB.
Jerry Cope, a former PRB chief, said the body should consider revisiting its original conclusion that most NHS staff deserved a £1,400 pay rise for 2022-23 because it “may be a possibility of a solution to this apparently insoluble problem”. .
He said, “I think they [ministers] should ask the pay review body to… make a very quick turnaround for this year’s recommendations and [say]: ‘I want you to take into account everything you might have missed last time’.”
The PRB is a long-established independent body which advises ministers on the amount of pay rewards that nurses and the bulk of the UK’s 1.5million NHS staff, excluding doctors and nurses dentists, should receive.
The NHS Confederation, the hospitals’ body, told ministers on Thursday evening that a new approach was needed to prevent their dispute with the NCR from developing into a protracted ‘stalemate’ which would disrupt key NHS services and the patient treatment.
Steve Brine, a former health minister who now chairs the Commons health select committee, said it would be smart to ask the pay review body to review.
“It seems to me that there is no endgame, no exit strategy for the government and the MRC in this conflict. The solution is to protect the integrity of the [pay review] process, go back and ask them to watch again,” he said.
If ministers requested a reassessment, Brine said, the RCN should show good faith by calling off the second strike, which is due to take place on Tuesday, December 20.
It would be “the flip side” of ministers abandoning their insistence that they cannot deviate from the PRB’s recommendation, which came before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. triggered runaway inflation.
“I think everyone needs to chill it,” Brine said.
Robert Buckland, a former justice secretary, said ‘a middle way’ must be found between the 4% offered by the government and the 5% hike above inflation RCN searched (currently 19%, based on RPI 14%).
“I just hope both sides can find it,” he said.
The union has made clear in recent days that it will consider reducing the percentage increase it is prepared to accept in order to reach an agreement.
Jake Berry, the chairman of the Conservative Party under Liz Truss, and Dr Daniel Poulter, another former health minister, have also made clear their support for a negotiated settlement involving the PRB.
Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, blamed ministerial intransigence for Thursday’s strikes, which involved up to 100,000 nurses.
“The strikes could have been avoided had the government tried to find common ground with the MRC on wages,” Taylor said. “The government cannot just sit idly by and let future strikes happen while patient care is at stake.
“The worry is that this is just the beginning, that any strikes possibly planned for January could be more severe and coordinated between the different unions, and that we could be in a stalemate for the foreseeable future.
“It does not benefit anyone and the government must act,” he said.
Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS employers, highlighted the the prospect of nursing strikes having a growing impact on the NHS. Without the “ministerial willingness to negotiate on pay issues”, the next round of RCN strikes could affect more hospitals, last longer and see fewer areas of care exempted for patient safety reasons, said he declared.
In an unexpected move, Ruth May, NHS England’s chief nurse, joined the picket line of striking nurses at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, across the River Thames from the Houses of Parliament. She told reporters ministers should work with the MRC and other health unions to resolve the big pay differences between them.
Reflecting on the strikes, Pat Cullen, General Secretary of the RCN, said: “Today will mark a turning point in the campaign for fair pay for nurses. In the end, ministers find themselves under new pressure from unexpected places – their own MPs, NHS leaders and a former chairman of the pay review body.
“Each of these groups, for different reasons, wants the government to stop hiding behind its current fig leaf.
“On a freezing day, the warmth of the public towards the nursing staff was immense. For my members, it’s about professional pride, not personal hardship – speaking up for nursing, patients and the future of the NHS.
Meanwhile, Sir Jim Mackey, a senior director of NHS England, has warned that next Wednesday’s ambulance strike across England represents ‘a completely different order of magnitude of risk [than the nurses’ strike]” to patient safety. All surgeries scheduled for that day may have to be canceled “as an absolute last resort”, to free up staff to deal with patients in need of urgent care, he said.