The UK government and health unions have been locked in a bitter war of words as paramedics and ambulance staff in England and Wales walked out on Wednesday over a pay dispute.
Eight ambulance trusts have been put on their highest level of alert. They have declared critical incidents, which means they cannot provide normal critical services and patients may be harmed.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay accused the Unite, Unison, and GMB unions, which have been coordinating the ambulance strike, of refusing to work with the government at the national level to set out plans for dealing with medical emergencies during the strike.
In an article in The Daily Telegraph, Barclay said though the unions had promised to provide “sufficient cover” to respond to the most serious emergencies, the cover arrangements remained unclear on the eve of the walkout.
He said this had made contingency planning “almost impossible,” and claimed that the unions had “taken a conscious choice to inflict harm on patients.”
But the unions said all those agreements had been made locally and were in place.
Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, called Barclay’s accusation a “blatant lie.”
Christina McAnea, general secretary of Unison, accused the health secretary of “complete and utter fabrication.”
She told the picket line at Waterloo in London that, at a meeting on Tuesday, she had explained to Barclay about how the unions were making the strikes safe across the country and he “acknowledged that.”
Escalation Threatened
The unions have been calling on ministers to come up with an improved pay offer for staff of the National Health Service (NHS), but the government has refused to discuss pay, insisting that it was standing by the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak insisted on Tuesday that he cannot budge on NHS pay because he does not want to exacerbate soaring inflation.
In his first appearance at the Liaison Committee of the House of Commons, Sunak said he was standing by the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies, which he said had taken into account “forward estimates of inflation.”
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the health secretary declined to review the current offer and said NHS staff need to “look forward” to next year’s pay process.
But McAnea, the Unison general secretary, told the PA news agency that if the government refuses to negotiate, union members may decide to escalate strike action in the new year.
She said: “I sincerely hope that today’s action—that we all wanted to avoid—will be enough to say to the government, roll it back and stop putting out all this aggressive, misleading information about the strikes and the ambulance workers, and sit down to talk to us in a rational way.
Further Talks Called For
As the strike went on, NHS leaders warned that the fallout from industrial action this week is likely to spill over into the coming days.There are concerns specifically around patients whose conditions might have deteriorated due to delays in seeking help, said NHS Providers, a membership organisation for NHS hospital, mental health, community, and ambulance services.
Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of the organisation, said: “Leaders across the NHS also know that as this week’s strike action draws to a close, the disruption is far from over.
“The fallout from strike action is likely to spill over into the coming days due to the knock-on impact across different parts of the health and care system, the need to reschedule elective and outpatient appointments, and the anticipation of a return to very high numbers of emergency calls.
“There is particular concern about patients who may have delayed seeking care—and whose conditions have deteriorated—now coming forward for treatment.”
Cordery said that there had been reports of NHS leaders and staff feeling a sense of “helplessness and moral injury” at not being able to help everyone who needs care.
“This is distressing and a reflection of the enormous pressure NHS staff are under, the standard to which they hold themselves, and the quality of care they want to give patients.”
She said leaders of NHS trusts are reiterating their calls for “urgent, serious talks, including on pay,” because they understand “how strongly nurses and ambulance staff feel and why below-inflation pay awards against a backdrop of the rising cost of living, severe staff shortages and ever-increasing workloads have brought them to take strike action this week.”
