NHS strike is about politics not patients, PM tells Tory faithful
Posted 05 October 2023 - 13:28
Rishi Sunak condemns timing of nurses’ latest industrial action over pay and staffing – but admits UK has not trained enough doctors and nurses ‘for decades’
Prime minister Rishi Sunak accused NHS staff of deliberately striking the week of the Conservative Party conference, suggesting the industrial action was about ‘politics not patients’.
Members of Unite including nurses held strikes at trusts in London alongside a doctors’ strike by the British Medical Association (BMA). The walkouts are over pay and poor staffing levels that Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said are putting patients at risk.
‘Strikes not in the spirit of the NHS
Rishi Sunak told the Tory conference in Manchester: ‘These strikes are not in the spirit of the NHS. Now this is a reasonable government. We have negotiated and reached pay deals with over a million NHS workers, including nurses and hospital porters.
‘And that they have chosen to walk out this week says it all. This strike is all about politics, not patients.’
The prime minister pledged to give teachers in ‘key subjects’ a £30,000 tax-free bonus over the first five years of their career to attract and retain staff.
Nurses’ pay deal ‘worst in public sector’
In response, RCN chief nurse Nicola Ranger said nurses had been given the worst deal in all public sector pay rises.
She said: ‘The prime minister’s plans for the NHS are at risk of being derailed by the nurse shortage he is still not addressing.
‘After being given the worst pay deal in the public sector, nurses will also be questioning why they are being left out of the bonus scheme now being offered to others.
‘Nursing staff and patients deserve better than missed targets and short-sighted rhetoric. They need action to recruit and retain more staff, so they’re not stretched so thin caring for then, 15 or more patients each shift. It’s not safe.’
PM pledges to end reliance on overseas nurse recruitment and agency cover
Later in his speech Mr Sunak admitted the UK had not been training enough nurses ‘for decades’.
He said: ‘Next, Steve [Barclay, health and and social care secretary] and I want to give the NHS the staff it needs. For decades we’ve not trained enough doctors and nurses. The result, the NHS either hiring staff from abroad or paying temporary agency workers huge fees, and we are ending that with the first ever long-term workforce plan for our health service.’
He went on to say the plan would double the amount of nurses training and help the NHS become more productive.
NHS employers don’t know how workforce plan will be funded
But NHS Providers’ deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said that while the workforce plan was welcome, employers are still waiting to hear details on how it will be funded and implemented.
She added: ‘Trust leaders will welcome the prime minister’s ambition to ease pressures on the NHS, but what was missing from today’s speech was how this would be achieved, given the significant and growing strain on the service.’
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