Keir Starmer Tells Rishi Sunak To Reopen Negotiations With Nursing Union

Rishi Sunak mentioned the federal government has supplied the nursing union a “honest pay deal” (Alamy)

3 min learn14 December

RCN members will maintain a 12-hour strike  for the primary time ever on Thursday, arguing for pay to match inflation.

Labour chief Keir Starmer mentioned the nurses’ strikes are a “badge of disgrace” for the federal government, and accused the Prime Minister of “taking part in video games with folks’s well being” throughout PMQs on Wednesday.

“All of the Prime Minister has to do is to open the door and focus on pay with them,” Starmer mentioned.

“If he did that, the entire nation would breathe a sigh of reduction.”

Starmer reiterated his demand for the federal government to scrap the non-dom tax standing to lift more cash for the NHS and public providers. 

Nevertheless, Sunak mentioned the federal government has supplied the nursing union a “honest pay deal” and accused Starmer of “not being sturdy sufficient” to face as much as the unions. 

The Prime Minister blamed Covid for piling additional stress on the NHS and making a backlog of sufferers ready for care, and added that the federal government has backed nurses all through the pandemic with quite a few measures. 

“Final 12 months when everybody else within the public sector had a public sector pay freeze, the nurses obtained a 3 per cent pay rise,” he mentioned.

“When the RCN requested for extra in-work coaching, we gave each nurse and midwife a £1,000 coaching finances. And once they requested the nurses bursaries, we made positive that each nursing pupil obtained a £5,000 grant.” 

This winter, the RCN have demanded a rise of at the least 15 per cent in contrast with the £1,400 rise awarded earlier this 12 months, however Well being Secretary Stephen Barclay mentioned these calls for had been “neither cheap or inexpensive”.

Earlier this week Barclay advised The Sunday Telegraph: “Big settlements like these would turbocharge inflation after we are endeavouring to maintain it beneath management. It can have an adversarial affect on folks’s incomes in the long term.”

Pat Cullen, normal secretary of the RCN, has claimed the federal government refused on a number of events to fulfill with unions after nurses voted to strike.

She advised the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday that her “door is open” for negotiations and hinted that the RCN may soften its requires a pay rise of 5 per cent above inflation.

With ambulance workers additionally set to stroll out, individuals are already being urged to solely name 999 for an ambulance if their life is in danger.

The top of most cancers take care of NHS England, Dame Cally Palmer, has referred to as on the RCN to exempt most cancers surgical procedure clinics from walkouts, amid fears the nursing strikes may put lives in danger. 

Nevertheless, the RCN has refused to workers such procedures, committing solely to offering “emergency most cancers providers” or instantly life-saving operations.

PoliticsHome Newsletters

PoliticsHome gives probably the most complete protection of UK politics anyplace on the internet, providing top quality authentic reporting and evaluation: Subscribe