with intensive and cancer care nurses taking part for the first time.Nurses’ leaders have warned the health service “can’t cope” without their members who are “determined” to press on with strikes even if a pay rise for NHS workers goes ahead on Tuesday.
Services across England were braced for “exceptionally low” staffing as part of the “biggest” walkout yet over the bank holiday.
But the health secretary Steve Barclay accused nurses of taking premature and disrespectful action, just hours before a meeting that could deliver salary increases for many.
On Tuesday the NHS Staff Council, made up of health unions, employers and government representatives, will meet to discuss minister’s 5 per cent pay offer.
This has been rejected by the RCN and the Unite union, but accepted by a number of others.
Pat Cullen, the leader of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), denied support for strikes among her members would “crumble” if the pay rise goes ahead. “These are very determined people,” she said.
Earlier she told BBC Breakfast: “We can now see the NHS can’t cope without nursing staff, that is abundantly clear.”
She called on general managers in the NHS to “signal immediately to government the importance of nursing – and how critical it is to get this dispute resolved.”
On Tuesday the NHS Staff Council, made up of health unions, employers and government representatives, will meet to discuss minister’s 5 per cent pay offer, which the RCN has rejected.
With that meeting looming, the health secretary Steve Barclay has accused nurses of taking premature and disrespectful action.
But Ms Cullen hit back, accusing Mr Barclay himself of “disrespect” for not entering face to face talks with the RCN on how to end the strike.
She said she had had “absolutely” no discussions with Mr Barclay or his officials over the weekend.
“(This strike) ends by getting into a room and putting more money on the table for our brilliant nurses,” she said.
In an interview with the Independent over the weekend she warned the government could face years of strikes by nurses if it did not find a way to resolve the crisis.
But she told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that nurses on strike on Monday will return to help patients if emergencies arise.
She said: ” I won’t even have to ask those nurses to return to work, they will return at their own volition.
“They don’t turn their back on patients, they will continue to do what they need to do.”
However, Nick Hulme, chief executive of the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said that while an exemption to the strike had been agreed for Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) services at Colchester Hospital, nurses refused to work.
He told Times Radio: “Unfortunately, despite that exemption, the nurses still chose not to come in. They’re not obliged to come in, even if asked to come in by ourselves and the RCN. So we were in a position where we had to significantly reduce the capacity on that ITU. Down to the fact we could only admit one patient.”
Thousands of nurses walked out at 8pm on Sunday in what has been described by the RCN as the “biggest strike yet” because it includes nursing staff from emergency departments, intensive care and cancer care for the first time.
The 28-hour action, will end just before midnight on Monday. Last week a High Court judge ruled it would be unlawful for it to continue into Tuesday as originally planned.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, warned strikes had “taken a heavy toll” as he urged unions to accept the pay deal.
“We are relieved it’s only a one-day strike – initially it was going to be two – and we’re grateful to the RCN for putting in place a rising number of mitigations specifically agreed with individual hospitals in order to protect life-and-limb services,” he told Sky News.
“If it hadn’t been for the action that the nurses, the paramedics, other groups took, then they wouldn’t have had the pay deal which is going to be discussed tomorrow, and that pay deal comprises a fairly significant back-dated sum and also for 5 per cent for this year.”
He added: “It’s been the togetherness, the solidarity of the trade unions that’s got them the progress they have achieved, otherwise they would have had a much smaller settlement.
“I think our view now is that given that most staff have voted in favour of this deal, it is time to accept it.”
Dr Vin Diwakar, NHS England’s medical director for national transformation, told the BBC’s Today programme there would be an “impact on cancer services other than those where there are life and limb-threatening services needed”.
