Resident doctors in a previous strike (Image: PA)
Health Secretary Wes Streeting was accused of “enabling chaos” in the NHS as patients braced for a fresh wave of strikes. Nurses, doctors and other health workers are threatening walkouts in rows over pay and reforms announced last month as part of the Government’s 10 Year Health Plan. It follows five days of action by resident doctors last month.
The turmoil comes despite Labour boasting that it had put an end to strikes by giving health workers inflation-busting pay rises. Stuart Andrew, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said: “When doctors abandon the frontline for the picket line, it is a direct threat to patient care.”
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He said the Government had encouraged union militancy by handing out huge pay rises without securing a single reform in return. Mr Andrew said: “The message from Wes Streeting was clear - militant behaviour is rewarded.”
But he warned the Government’s new employment rights laws would make strike action even more likely in the future, by removing a rule that 50% of eligible union members must take part in a strike ballot for the vote to be valid.
One of Labour’s first acts after winning power last year was to announce a series of inflation-busting pay rises in the public sector. Doctors and dentists were awarded a pay rise of 6 per cent while senior NHS managers received a rise of 5 per cent and resident doctors were given pay rises of around 22 per cent over two years.
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Health Secretary Wes Streeting boasted in September that he was “putting an end to strikes which have had a catastrophic impact not just on the country’s economy – with NHS strikes costing the taxpayer almost ￡1.7 billion in the 2023-24 financial year – but to patients and the nation’s health.”
But the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has now warned its members will be balloted on industrial action if the Government fails to reach an agreement on pay, after members rejected 3.6% pay increase for 2025/26 in England.
Resident doctors are threatening more walkouts after holding five days of action last month.
Separately, the British Medical Association has warned that family GPs could be involved in “future dispute” unless they receive reassurances over pay and their role in new neighbourhood health hubs, which the Government is introducing as part of its 10-year NHS plan.
And a ballot by Unite found 89 percent of the union’s members in the NHS rejected a 3.6 percent pay offer, with 95 percent saying they were willing to take industrial action to oppose “cuts” to the NHS.
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The union said it was urging Ministers to hold talks “in order to avoid a strike that is likely to affect a number of Trusts (including Ambulance Trusts) and a number of national organisations such as NHS England and NHS Blood and Transplant”.
A Department for Health spokesperson said: “We are working hard to fix the NHS and we are starting to turn the tide. With waiting lists the lowest they have been in two years, satisfaction with GPs on the up, 4.6 million appointments delivered in our first year, and our 10 Year Health Plan getting underway, we are turning the NHS around.
"After two years in a row of above inflation pay rises for NHS workers, we can’t move any further on headline pay, but this government wants to work constructively with unions to address their major concerns – that includes pay structure reform, concerns about career progression, and wider working conditions."
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