The government has rejected an offer by nursing unions to suspend an unprecedented planned strike this week in return for pay talks with the health secretary.
Foreign secretary James Cleverly said Steve Barclay would be happy to discuss issues like working conditions with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) but not wages, arguing that ministers’ stance kept “politics” out of the health service.
But shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said the government’s attitude was “dangerous” and “irresponsible” and that ministers were turning down an offer “too good to refuse”.
If there is no breakthrough in negotiations, thousands of nurses are due to walkout across the country on Thursday and again on December 20.
Mr Barclay has already warned that with the NHS already under pressure from Covid “the risks to patients will be significant”.
The health service is working to ensure public safety during the industrial action.
But Sir Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, warned the strikes could knock “off course” attempts by the NHS to reduce waiting lists.
Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the RCN said she was willing to suspend the strike if Mr Barclay agreed to come to the table and discuss a deal. She also suggested that she was flexible on pay demands.
The RCN has been calling for a pay rise of 5 per cent above inflation, warning experienced nurses are 20 per cent worse off in real terms because of a series of below-inflation awards since 2010.
But she told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “What I am saying is the Health Secretary can choose negotiation over picket lines.
“My door is open, I am offering conciliation…and we can start that from tomorrow morning.”
“I won’t dig in if he doesn’t dig in,” she added.
Mr Cleverly said that the health secretary was “of course, willing to talk to” the RCN, but he said pay negotiations were for employers, in this case the NHS, not the government.
He told Times Radio ‘it would be completely wrong’ for a government minister to get involved with nurses’ pay negotiations, saying: “It would completely undermine the leadership of the NHS.”
He also defended the government’s position saying “so often we say we need to take the politics out of this”.
Mr Streeting said: “I think that is an offer that’s too good to refuse and I want the government to explain why they aren’t prepared to even sit down and talk even though they know patients will experience real disruption as a result of strike action.”
“The government’s line is a complete joke on that, there hasn’t been a single minute of negotiation.
“It is completely unreasonable for the government not to want to negotiate and I think they’re spoiling with a fight.”
He accused ministers of planning to blame staff for “an NHS crisis which is squarely their fault”.
“People will rightly blame the government not the unions if these strikes go ahead,” he told Sky News on Sunday.
Ms Cullen said it was “despicable” that UK nurses were the “lowest paid in Europe”.
“Nurses aren’t greedy people. They are not asking for an incredible pay rise, they are asking just to be able to make ends meet,” she added.
Asked about the issue on the BBC, Stuart Rose – the boss of Asda and a Tory peer – said “nurses should get paid more money.”
Dr Emma Runswick, the deputy chair of the council of the main doctors’ union, the British Medical Association (BMA) said her members were looking for pay restoration”, which meant a 25 per cent increase.
Mr Streeting refused to commit to raising health care workers’ pay, saying he could not make promises of what he could do in two years’ time.
He also said he has been “treated like a heretic” by the BMA over his ideas for reform designed to improve patient access.
But he said it was ultimately his job to “be the patients’ champion”.
