Steve Barclay: nurses going on strike is in nobody’s best interest
Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay's opinion article in the Sunday Telegraph on NHS industrial action.
All of us feel immensely grateful to our amazing NHS nurses. They care for us when we are at our most vulnerable, and show compassion and kindness each day. During the pandemic, they demonstrated exemplary commitment through the greatest challenge the NHS has faced in its 74-year history. Quite rightly, we all joined together to applaud them. As Health and Social Care Secretary, I will always do my utmost to support nurses in the vital work they do.
This government is investing in the NHS workforce, with an extra 9,000 nurses recruited this year. We are on track to fulfil our promise of an extra 50,000 nurses over the course of the current Parliamentary term.
But this week, I was saddened by the news that some members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have voted for industrial action in a ballot over pay. This year, amid the huge pressure on the public finances after the pandemic, the government gave nurses a proportionate, balanced pay increase.
This extra money was not determined by ministers, but a group of independent experts, who had to wrestle with the challenging task of calculating an offer that would support recruitment and retention while also taking into consideration the urgent need to keep inflation down.
Despite the immense economic challenges this country faces, we accepted the recommendations of this independent body in full. This means that we are giving over one million non-medical NHS workers a pay rise of at least £1,400 this year, on top of a 3% pay increase last year when wider public sector pay was frozen.
As a result, a newly qualified nurse will now typically earn over £31,000 a year including overtime and unsocial hours payments. This is a balanced increase that is fair for nurses and the taxpayer too.
Yet the RCN is demanding a massive pay rise of 17.6% – an increase that is simply neither reasonable nor affordable. It is about 3 times the average settlement that millions of hardworking people, including many Sunday Telegraph readers, working outside the public sector will typically receive. Huge settlements like these would turbocharge inflation when we are endeavouring to keep it under control. It will have an adverse impact on people’s incomes in the long run.
Last week, I had a constructive meeting with the leadership of the RCN the day after the ballot results were announced. I listened to their concerns, not just about pay but many other issues affecting nurses’ working lives. I believe there are numerous areas where we can work together to help fix the NHS, tackle the pandemic backlog and deliver the care that patients deserve.
My door will always be open. I want to continue the dialogue we started and explore how to find a way forward. But the government cannot agree to unreasonable pay demands. If the RCN does go ahead with industrial action, I will make sure that emergency services continue to operate for those that need them most, and patients should continue to come forward for emergency services as normal.
But it is inevitable that any strike would mean some patients will have their treatment delayed, and I would urge the unions to consider the impact on those who rely on the NHS for their care. We are facing a difficult winter for our whole country and industrial action is in nobody’s best interests.