The government accused unions of deliberately harming patients as ambulance workers began strike action in the latest crisis to hit Britain’s beleaguered National Health Service.
(Bloomberg) — The government accused unions of deliberately harming patients as ambulance workers began strike action in the latest crisis to hit Britain’s beleaguered National Health Service.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said not all calls to the emergency services would receive a response despite contingency plans put in place during Wednesday’s strike.
“Ambulance unions have made a conscious choice to inflict harm on patients,” Barclay wrote in the Telegraph newspaper. Unions blamed the fallout on the government’s refusal to consider higher salaries for health sector workers.
Ahead of the strike, the public were told to avoid “risky activity” and to not drink too much alcohol. Several ambulance services and NHS trusts declared so-called critical incidents as emergency services come under intense pressure.
Ambulance workers are demanding a higher pay rise to cope with the UK’s cost of living crisis. Nurses also went on strike Tuesday this week and Thursday last week, as part of the dispute over pay.
Polls have consistently shown a high level of public sympathy for health workers. Two thirds of Britons support the nurses’ strike, according to a survey from YouGov this week, while 63% support the ambulance workers. More Conservative voters support the nurses’ strike than oppose it.
The nurses’ union said it will announce further strike dates for January by the end of this week unless talks take place over pay. Ministers have said they’re willing to discuss other factors affecting nurses’ morale, but not compensation.
Rachel Harrison, national secretary of the GMB, one of the labor groups that represents ambulance workers, said they “have tried everything to raise pay, the issue that is causing this dispute, but the government will not listen and will not talk.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak “could still make this the last nurse strike of his premiership,” said Pat McCullen, the Royal College of Nursing’s general secretary. “There are two days for us to meet and begin to turn this around by Christmas.”
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The UK is suffering mass strikes by rail staff, postal workers, border officials, baggage handlers and civil servants, as well as those in the health service. The cost-of-living crisis has prompted calls for steeper pay hikes, but the government insists that big public-sector raises would risk embedding inflation.
“If we get it wrong and we’re still dealing with high inflation in a year’s time, that’s not going to help anybody,” Sunak told members of Parliament on Tuesday.
Ministers have said pay proposals made to nurses and ambulance workers must be abided by as they were recommended by independent review bodies. Unions argue that such groups are not fully independent because they operate within parameters set by the government.
Barclay, the health secretary, met unions on Tuesday afternoon but Onay Kasab, Unite’s national lead officer, said the meeting was “entirely pointless” due to the government’s refusal to negotiate over pay.
(Adds Steve Barclay’s quotations and YouGov polling.)
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