As health service unions get ready to hold crucial discussions on the package this week, the Observer understands that ministers intend to force a wage deal on NHS staff despite the fact that nurses continue to object to it.
After protracted talks that resulted in strikes and impeded efforts to reduce waiting lists, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Unite unions both still oppose the deal provided to NHS employees. On Tuesday, the 12 unions involved in the negotiations will come together to vote on whether to accept an improved agreement for the previous two years.
Sources who spoke to The Guardian claimed that ministers would simply implement the agreement if the unions opposed to it were to lose the vote. The RCN, which will start a new strike on Sunday, is reportedly being isolated by the action.
At a meeting of the NHS staff council on Tuesday, health unions will discuss the agreement. Despite persistent opposition, the majority of insiders anticipate it will pass the vote. Before the latest strike action, there have been concerns of a morale crisis within the NHS.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said there were now “serious issues” about recruitment that went beyond the current pay talks. “I talk to NHS leaders all the time and I have never known a period when leaders are so worried about staff morale and there is a sense of a loss of hope,” he told the BBC. “We have 120,000-plus of vacancies in the health service.”
The general secretary of the RCN, Pat Cullen, called it “disingenuous” to attribute the ongoing issue of treatment delays to strikes.
The proposed agreement would add a one-time, non-consolidated payment of between £1,250 and £2,000 for 2022–23 to the $1,400 increase in basic pay that NHS employees in England have already received, with the exception of doctors and dentists. For 2023–2024, it also contains a 5% increase in the minimum wage.
The RCN’s most recent strike was scheduled to go until 8 p.m. on May 2, but it was forced to end early after the top court in London determined that the RCN’s legal right to strike had expired on May 1.
