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THE UK’S NHS is facing a “hugely disrupted day” after tens of thousands of workers began the biggest walk out in the service’s history.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said strikes will continue for “as long as it takes”, while Unite warned of a “constant cycle” of industrial action.
Union leaders implored the UK Government to act to prevent further strike action but ministers have insisted they cannot afford “inflation-busting pay rises”.
The NHS is expecting upheaval across England as nurses from the RCN stage walk-outs alongside GMB and Unite paramedics, call handlers and other staff at ambulance trusts.
It is the first time ambulance workers and nurses have walked out on the same day.
Nurses will strike again tomorrow, ambulance workers again on Friday and physiotherapists on Thursday.
NHS leaders described the “most disruptive week of strikes to date” – but urged people to seek urgent and emergency care if they need it and attend appointments as planned unless they have been contacted in advance.
Unions in Wales largely suspended similar action after the Welsh government came forward with an improved pay offer on Friday.
Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts, told Sky News:
“I think it’s going to be a hugely disrupted day across the NHS. It’s going to be incredibly challenging.
“With both nurses and ambulance staff out on strike today, and nurses again tomorrow – and we’ve got physiotherapist later in the week and some ambulance staff again on Friday – we’re planning for an incredibly disrupted week.”
She said hospital leaders will need to “step away” from day-to-day tasks, including clearing the backlog of care and implementing the UK Government’s new Urgent and Emergency Care plan.
“They will be focusing simply on getting through the next couple of days and that will have a knock-on effect on patients,” she said.
“This isn’t just about the here and now, it’s about the knock-on effect. What does it mean when someone has a procedure, a test, an operation, delayed for a number of days, a number of weeks? That will have an impact on them.”
While urgent and emergency care remains open, Cordery said there could be an impact on cancer services in some parts of the country.
She urged the UK Government to negotiate with unions on 2022/23 pay.
“Well, I hope it ends by the Government coming around the table to negotiate a settlement for this year’s pay for NHS staff.
“I think that we need to recognise that NHS staff have faced soaring costs, cost of living has gone up, inflation has gone up, and the settlement from this year’s pay review body was made at a time when inflation wasn’t at the levels it’s at at the moment.
“So I think it’s really important that we focus on getting a deal for this year, as well as then thinking about what next year’s pay deal looks like.”
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen told the PA news agency: “Everyone can see the resilience of our nursing staff, these brilliant people that are standing on the picket lines today, losing another day’s pay. They are saying patients have had enough, they have had enough.
“They’re not willing to continue to see their NHS managing every day within a crisis.
“They’re trying to bring their NHS back from the brink and they will continue to do this for as long as this Government takes to listen to them.”
Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, said the UK Government should open negotiations on pay or face a “constant cycle” of walkouts.
She told PA: “This Government has not at any time in this dispute come to the table about the substantive issue on pay, and that is the real issue.
“There isn’t going to be any other way to end this dispute until they come to the table and talk about pay.
“What we need is the talks to happen with (Prime Minister) Rishi Sunak and/or (Health Secretary) Stephen Barclay on pay, we can get an offer and then we can put that off to the members.
“That’s what needs to happen. Until that happens, we are in this constant cycle of having strike action, which obviously nobody wants.
“Our members do not want to be on strike. They want to be at work serving the country.”
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On 2022/23 pay, Graham added: “They can’t just always sing ‘la la la la la’ and hope that the year goes by and we will forget what’s happened. This year’s pay needs to be addressed.”
‘Billions of pounds’
UK Mental health minister Maria Caulfield suggested it would cost “billions of pounds” to reopen this year’s pay settlement for nurses in England because the Government would have to do the same for other public sector workers.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the “door is firmly open” to further talks with health unions regarding next year’s pay process.
Asked if there is a “possibility” negotiations could include looking at 2022/23 pay, she said: “The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have been clear that that would be extremely difficult to do because it wouldn’t just be for nurses; you would have teachers saying, ‘Could we open this year’s pay settlement?’. You’ve got ambulance drivers, rail workers…
“There is a range of public sector workers who would also want the same request. Across the board, you’re talking about billions of pounds to pay for that and we want to put that into frontline services, as we are doing now.”
Caulfield, who is also the minister for women, told Times Radio Barclay met with health unions “virtually on a weekly basis during January” to “talk about pay”.
She added: “We are very happy to talk about the forthcoming year’s pay award, which is exactly what they’ve done in Scotland and the RCN have called off the strikes as a result.”
Speaking to GB News, she added: “It is difficult for us now. If we are to give a pay (rise) to nurses, we would have to look at teachers, ambulance drivers.
“We just can’t afford inflation-busting pay rises that the unions are currently demanding.”
She said patients could be put at risk “the longer that strikes go on”.
Caulfield told Sky News:
“There is a risk to patients the longer that strikes go on.
“So if your operation is cancelled the first time, there is probably a minimum risk. If that’s cancelled time and time again because of ongoing strikes, then patients become more poorly and there is always a risk.
“And with ambulance strikes, if someone’s having a heart attack or a stroke, that does increase someone’s risk the longer that response time is.”
Labour’s leader accused ministers of “sitting this one out” when it came to negotiating with striking nurses and ambulance workers in England over pay.
Keir Starmer, speaking to broadcasters at Airbus in Filton, near Bristol, said: “The widespread strikes today are a badge of shame for the Government.
“Nobody wants to see these strikes, nobody wants to be on strike – the last thing nurses want to do is to be on strike.
“What they do want is a Government that can show leadership, get around the negotiating table and settle this dispute.
“Before Christmas, the nurses made clear that if the Government was to get in the room and talk to them about pay, they wouldn’t be on strike.
“I think many people listening to this will be absolutely flabbergasted that the Government is still sitting this one out, not showing any leadership in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, making the situation much worse than it otherwise would be.”
Welsh Health Minister Eluned Morgan encouraged the UK Government to sit down to “talk and listen” with unions after strikes in Wales were largely suspended thanks to a new pay offer.
“I do think that there’s a lesson here for the UK Government – UK Government needs to understand that in order to get any kind of deal you need to sit down, you need to talk and you need to listen,” she told PA.
“They’re not doing any of that, and I would encourage them to do that.”
Meanwhile, Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, told PA: “While strikes may disrupt emergency care and pose a risk for patient safety, we know that patient safety has long been at risk as a result of years of under-resourcing, under-funding, lack of staff, lack of beds and inadequate and insufficient community and social care.
“This is why it is absolutely critical that every effort is made to retain existing staff in the health service, working on the frontline and delivering for patients.
“As colleagues take industrial action, patients should be reassured staff in hospitals will continue to deliver care and ensure the protection and safety of patients.”
The RCN, which is staging two days of action, said nurses are set to strike at 73 trusts in England, up from 55 during January’s strike days and 44 in December.
Ambulance crews and call handlers will return to work tomorrow but are due to walk out again on Friday.
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Spare a thought for atheists this Christmas. Can’t be easy for them watching everyone else having a ball, hugging each other, family reunions, eating mince pies and generally exuding an air of peace and goodwill to all men.
If there’s an atheist in your neighbourhood drop a card in their letterbox to let them know they’re not alone this Christmas and hopefully they’ll glimpse a little bit of light in their lives before they go to hell.
@Tommy Haze: Wishing people to go to hell contradicts the Christmas spirit. It‘s supposed to be all about love, kindness, forgiveness and caring for each other. I am agnostic.
@Tommy Haze: atheists can still celebrate an old European cultural tradition. Born from religion, but installed in a lot of people’s minds as more of a tradition than a religious feast.
Unbridled consumerism (which is what Christmas has become in our societies) is probably not something the founders of Christianism would have approved of
@Tommy Haze: I’m an atheist, doesn’t stop me from eating mince pies, drinking egg nog and having a merry old time. All these pursuits are nothing to do with Christ or Christmas but rather are the invention of tawdry rip off merchants cashing in. Glad to see you enjoy these things in the true “Christian spirit”!!
@Jimmy Wallace:
LoL … Still biting ? You took that one hook, line and sinker ! Like taking candy from a child … Nobody needs to be put straight by you. I’m laughing at you, you’re a gullible clown. LoL
@Regular John: Falling for obvious bait being slightly less embarrassing than someone over the age of 15 trying to wind people up online. Any attention is good attention when you don’t get any in real life though, I suppose
@Tommy Haze: I fear hell as much as you fear valhalla. Atheists celetrate Xmas as well btw. We just drop some of the Fairytales and leave it at Santa and the elves.
@Megan Ward:
I didn’t wind anyone up, someone else did, save your insults for them. I’m just laughing at all these self proclaimed “atheists” getting all bent out of shape by it. I don’t think it was that obvious to some of them !
@Regular John: Yes I’m aware, I am able to differentiate between different ‘names’, I was responding to your comment that laughs at the poor eejit who can’t recognise bait but doesn’t make any mention of the one throwing the bait being sad.
“Atheists” so I presume we’re going to start calling everyone ‘self-proclaimed “Catholics”‘, ‘self-proclaimed “Muslims”‘, ‘self-proclaimed “Protestants”‘, etc? Just to keep up the use of redundant quotation marks :)
@Jimmy Wallace:
You think I’m a God botherer ?LOL… You still don’t get it ! Oh man, you would swallow a brick. I can honestly say you are the most gullible person on here !
Christmas is about family, friends, happiness, good cheer, the kids & santa – I don’t associate it with religion. The tree, it’s assembly and decoration I associate with a bottle of chardonnay, kindly gifted by a friend a little closer to Christmas than now.
@brian o’leary: Clearly your bells haven’t been jingled in a while dear. Get them out, blow the dust off them and mind you don’t damage them on the pine needles.
@I can see clearly now: I wasn’t being critical, just suggesting to each their own. If people want to be religious, or buy lots of presents , that’s up to them. Your Christmas sounds pretty good BTW, except for the chardonnay…. I’m a sauvignon blanc man myself.
Usually they put up around the 8th Dec. This year it’ll be the 15th Dec. Always taken down on the 7th January. Although one year when I was a student we took the decorations down two days after Paddy’s Day.
@brian o’leary: Someone who believes that Christian doctrine is rubbish. Agnostic is more of a ‘not sure’ category. You could celebrate Yule which is what was around before people who worshipped the land were told this place was a landfill by comparison to ‘heaven’ where when you die you meet your rellies (only the ones you like) and have a whale of a time for eternity… however long that is, lol.
Christmas trees are lovely, but is there any update on the condition of the five-year-old girl who had her throat slashed on Thursday afternoon? Is she even still alive?
@Jimmy Wallace: Put down the pipe there, gorge – if you can use this comments section to cynically question people’s belief in god, then I can use it to ask other important questions.
@Tríona Commode:
Go easy on him Tríona, he’s been very upset by a comment above winding up the atheists. He’s obviously a very delicate little flower. LOL.
As regards the young girl that was attacked, I didn’t see anything about her condition today. Hopefully no news is good news and she pulls through.
@Quinn: ‘The modern Christmas tree originated in Germany, where families set up a paradise tree in their homes on December 24, the religious feast day of Adam and Eve. They hung wafers on it (symbolizing the Eucharistic host, the Christian sign of redemption).’
What fascinates me is the story of how the wee man himself was born in a manger,as there was no room at the inn. It beggars belief how they expected to find anywhere to stay anyway,as hardly anywhere is open at Christmas.
Tradition in our house is, it goes up after the Toy show. It’s up and it’s flashing away. The two cats are in it most of the day. Everyone to their own. I feel it is comforting
People put decorations up way to early. Getting earlier every year. Christmas not same as was when I was growing up ment more than buying stuff dont need. Heck people may go mass but dont bother rest year .
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