In an escalating pay dispute, tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance workers have staged Britain’s largest-ever health workers’ strike on Monday (February 6), the health minister warning that this will put further strain on the National Health Service (NHS). The largest strike in the NHS’s 75-year history included both nurses and ambulance personnel after they had been striking separately on and off since late last year.
Stephen Powis, England’s top physician who spoke to Reuters, said that this week’s strike action—during which physiotherapists will also walk out on Thursday (February 9) —would likely be the most disruptive so far.
The government claims that health workers’ demands for salary reflecting the highest inflation in Britain in four decades are unaffordable and would lead to more price hikes, which would raise interest rates and mortgage payments.
Since the summer of 2022, some 500,000 workers, majority of them in the public sector, have gone on strike. This has increased the pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to settle the conflicts and reduce the impact on essential public services like trains and schools.
While stressing that there would be disruption, health minister Steve Barclay urged people to keep using the emergency services and showing up for appointments unless they had been cancelled.
“Despite contingency measures in place, strikes by ambulance and nursing unions this week will inevitably cause further delays for patients who already face longer waits due to the Covid backlogs,” he said in a statement.
“I have held constructive talks with the trade unions on pay and affordability and continue to urge them to call off the strikes.”
The National Health Service (NHS), once a source of pride for the majority of Britons, is under enormous pressure due to the millions of people on waiting lists for surgeries and the hundreds of patients who are denied immediate emergency care each month.
Also watch | Sunak government under fire over strikes in UK
A decade of low compensation has caused tens of thousands of nurses to quit their jobs – 25,000 in the past year alone — with detrimental consequences on patient care due to the acute staffing shortages, according to the spokesperson from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), who spoke to Reuters.
Although both parties had been in negotiations for weeks without coming to an agreement, the RCN first requested a salary increase of five per cent over inflation and then suggested it might meet the government “halfway.”
(With inputs from agencies)
