Record UK health strike piles pressure on stretched service

Bloomberg

Health care workers are walking out in record numbers this week, crippling the National Health Service and piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to resolve multiple disputes over pay for public-sector workers.
Some 100,000 nurses are striking alongside about 10,000 ambulance workers on Monday, with 4,200 physiotherapists walking out on Thursday. Nurses will take action again on Tuesday, and ambulance workers will do so on Friday.
At least 55,000 appointments are likely to be delayed as a result of this week’s strikes, according to Bloomberg calculations based on NHS England data on previous industrial action.
Maria Caulfield, the health minister who’s also a nurse, blamed unions for refusing to abide by a pay review process that the government insists is independent. Labor groups say it’s not truly independent and argue that governments have previously ignored pay recommendations.
“We’re stuck in a kind of circle here,” Caulfield told Times Radio on Monday morning, because unions won’t discuss next year’s salaries and ministers are refusing to renegotiate pay for the 2022-23 fiscal period.
Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said again Monday that Sunak could stop the strikes by agreeing to consider higher pay for the current year. The combined walkouts “could see the worst disruption yet,” said Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts across the UK. “We can’t go on like this.”
The upheaval threatens to plunge the state-run NHS into further chaos at a time when the latest British Medical Association estimate shows a record 7.2 million patients are waiting for treatment, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, ambulance response times have hit their longest on record this winter and weekly deaths in England and Wales have been above the long-term average since September.
“I’ve been a nurse now for eight years,” said Jack Potter, 30, speaking from a picket line in London. “I actually have recently been thinking about leaving the profession. There are more attractive opportunities outside of the NHS.”
The industrial action also represents a dilemma for Sunak, who’s made getting NHS waiting lists down and halving inflation two of his government’s five key priorities. He and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt have repeatedly pushed back against revising pay decisions for the current tax year, saying the government has accepted remuneration levels recommended by independent panels, and that increasing pay risks stoking inflation.
University staff are also striking again this week, while firefighters and rail workers are in crunch talks. Around 70,000 employees will be walking out demanding better pay and working conditions for two days later this week, according to the University and College Union.
The industrial action mirrors protests elsewhere in Europe. In Germany, postal workers are walking out at the start of this week, while French President Emmanuel Macron is trying to defuse mass strikes over plans for increase the retirement age.