Prime minister told tackling target difficult if more NHS strikes ahead
Good morning. Yesterday, when ConservativeHome was interviewing Rishi Sunak, it started with a video that it described as presenting Sunak’s own account of what he has achieved since he became prime minister. One of the successes it mentioned was agreeing a pay deal for NHS workers, and it quoted Sunak as saying, about a month ago, he was “delighted to say that the government has reached an agreement with unions representing over a million NHS workers, on a fair and reasonable basis”.
Sunak may have been speaking too soon. The unions involved have been balloting their members on the deal and the Royal College of Nursing, probably the most important union in this negotiation, is announcing the result of the ballot today.
Sources close to the union said the vote is so close that it has been forced to make contingency plans for a no vote. Those plans would mean the NHS in England would be hit by another wave of nursing strikes, starting within weeks and going on for what union officials say would be a prolonged period of time.
Such a result could leave patients having to deal with strikes by nurses and junior doctors at the same time, leading to more delayed treatments and missed appointments. It would also deal a heavy blow to the government, which had hoped a deal with nurses would pave the way for a series of settlements and bring an end to the winter’s wave of industrial action.
NHS bosses are particularly concerned about the RCN, whose members are expected to vote against by a “narrow” margin, with some predicting a 55-45 split. Unison members, who include ambulance workers and other frontline staff, are considered more likely to accept.
Three sources with knowledge of the process said it was becoming increasingly apparent that RCN members were likely to vote against the deal. Although voting will continue until 9am tomorrow, one NHS source said: “It’s not looking good”.
Another set of strikes would mean that it would become very very difficult, perhaps almost impossible, for the health service, hospitals, to meet targets that they set this year for reducing waiting lists.
