LONDON – Hundreds of UK nurses walked out on Wednesday in a new wage protest, with no end to a wave of strikes putting pressure on Britain’s overstretched public health system.
Two 12-hour nurses’ strikes on Wednesday and Thursday affected around a quarter of hospitals and clinics in England. Emergency care and cancer treatment will proceed, but 1000’s of appointments and procedures are more likely to be postponed.
With more nurses’ strikes planned for next month – and ambulance employees announcing a new strike plan for February – the Conservative government is under increasing pressure to lift its opposition to substantial pay rises for medical staff.
“It’s a job I like but I actually have to pay the bills,” intensive care nurse Nav Singh told a London picket. “Nursing students don’t desire to be nurses, experienced nurses are leaving, nobody is staying and I do not blame them, but I am unable to imagine doing anything.”
Nurses, ambulance crews, train drivers, airport baggage handlers, border staff, driving instructors, bus drivers and postal employees have left their jobs in recent months demanding higher wages amid the cost of living crisis.
Inflation in the UK reached approx 41-year high 11.1% in October, driven by soaring energy and food costs, before declining barely to 10.5% in December.
The nurses’ union is looking for a 5% wage increase above inflation, even though it has said it’s going to accept a lower offer.
Pat Cullen, head of the Royal College of Nursing union, urged health officials to “take a table around the table and stop the strikes so we haven’t got to proceed in February.”
“I’d say to the prime minister this morning: should you want strikes to proceed, the voice of nurses will proceed to talk for his or her patients and that’s what you’re going to get,” she told ITV.
The British government argues that double-digit public sector wage increases will push inflation even further.
“Unaffordable wage increases will mean less look after patients and fuel inflation that may leave us all poorer,” health secretary Steve Barclay wrote in the Independent newspaper.
The federal government has also angered unions by introducing a bill that may make it harder for key employees to go on strike by setting “minimum safety levels” for firefighters, ambulances and railroads that should be maintained during the strike.
The nurses’ union has announced two more days of strike next month as disruption across the economy continues to accentuate. February 1 guarantees to be the most disruptive day yet, with strikes by teachers, train drivers, civil servants and university staff.
The GMB union said on Wednesday that 10,000 emergency call handlers, paramedics and other staff across much of England would go on strike on February 6 and 20 and March 6 and 20.
“Our message to the government is obvious – talk, pay now,” GMB national secretary Rachel Harrison said.
Opposition Labor leader Keir Starmer has accused the government of presiding over “deadly chaos” in the state-funded National Health Service, with many patients waiting hours for emergency ambulances.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the health system faced “unprecedented challenges” but urged the government to spend extra cash to ease the pressure – although he made no mention of staff demands for higher wages.
“We are investing more in emergency care to extend bed capability, we are ensuring that the flow of patients through emergency care is quicker than ever,” Sunak told the House of Commons.