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NHS bosses have implored ministers to ‘do everything you can’ to end strikes disrupting patient care and help save the service from its ‘vicious cycle’ of overburden and delays.
The NHS Confederation released its plea on the day day nurses in England went on strike for the third time as they seek a bigger pay rise for 2022/23 than the £1,400 on offer.
The confederation, which represents NHS trusts in England, has warned that each strike is forcing hospitals to cancel thousands of outpatient appointments and operations, setting back the service’s efforts to tackle the backlog of 7, 2 million people waiting to start routine treatment.
“Ahead of the next round of strikes, our message to the government is to give the NHS a fighting chance and do all you can to end this damaging conflict,” said Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the organisation. .
“The Prime Minister must not allow the stalemate in the wider public sector to delay a deal in the NHS.”
Government Minister Robert Jenrick said public sector workers could not get ‘significant’ pay rises because inflation, which fell to 10.5% from 10.7% last month , according to figures released on Wednesday, is only beginning to calm down.
The Home Secretary told Sky News: ‘I think what you are seeing with inflation today means that if international factors start working tentatively in the right direction, the worst thing we can do at national level would be to dramatically increase public sector wages and then entrench inflation in the UK economy and enter into a kind of wage spiral which would be very detrimental to the economy…we have to approach this very carefully because inflation is the great evil.
The Wednesday and Thursday stops are led by the Royal College of Feeding with milk and will likely cause hospitals to postpone 4,500 elective surgeries and 25,000 outpatient appointments, Taylor said.
The MRC has demanded a 5% raise above inflation, but has made it clear it will compromise if Steve Barclay, the health secretary, engages in detailed wage negotiations.