NHS and health

The strikes over pay for Agenda for Change (i.e. most) NHS employees in England are paused for negotiation. After the RCN cancelled their strikes in England at the beginning of March to go into unilateral negotiations, Unison, GMB, CSP and then Unite called off their planned action to join too. The government preconditions for negotiations with these unions were: cancellation of strikes; any uplift for 2022-23 would be a one-off unconsolidated payment; the talks to cover 2023-24 pay and “efficiency” reforms; and any offer coming from the negotiations to be recommended by trade unions to their...

The past few months have seen the biggest strikes by nurses in the history of the NHS. The RCN began its action in December, though has (at the time of writing) suspended action around negotiations. Unison, GMB and Unite have called out paramedics. Meanwhile, the BMA’s thumping victory in its national ballot has brought Junior Doctors into the dispute. As in the broader strike wave, pay is the core issue of the dispute. With inflation soaring, and after more than a decade of pay cuts, nurses were awarded a miserable £1,400 for 2022-23. This situation, combined with the wider crisis in the NHS...

Official statisticians have reported that the government has borrowed £30 billion less than projected in the 12 months to January 2023. That’s down to world-market gas prices abating, the recession being shallower (so far) than many (including us) feared, and receipts from taxes from the well-off holding up well. To increase public service pay rises for 2022-3 to 10% would cost the government only £8.5 billion , if we factor in recouping from taxes on the raised wages. Compare: £30 billion. £8.5 billion. The government insists that such rises would raise the base for pay for future years, and...

The BMA junior doctors have announced strikes from 7am 13 March to 7am 16 March, following a 98% vote for strikes on a 77% turnout. The new potential for all the health unions to co-ordinate, including the BMA, must increase pressure on the government both on pay and on rescuing the NHS. Unions have called ambulance strikes on 6 and 20 March. Unison has called a strike in ambulance and other trusts on 8 March, and won additional mandates in trusts it reballoted. Christine McAnea, Unison’s General Secretary, has tweeted, “Talks alone won’t be enough to call off these [strikes]. We want to see...

“Move fast and break things” (Mark Zuckerberg) and “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste” (Rahm Emmanuel) are today’s rules of combat for the ruling class. From their own angle, they’re right. In the class struggle, the side that is quickest on its feet, most agile, most energetic in mobilising and inspiring its supporters, is more likely to win. The Tories are set to lose the next election, and to have difficulty with their MPs even getting through pragmatic adjustments to their Northern Ireland Protocol. They are still setting a fast and determined pace. They want to get through as...

This report was written before the RCN called off its action. We have seen some important announcements in the ongoing NHS pay dispute. Re-ballots in Unison: from ten ballots run in England, Unison got a mandate for strike action in another nine trusts. Junior doctors vote to strike: A ballot by the British Medical Association, junior doctors went 98% for strikes, on a 77% turnout: they will strike for 72 hours in March. Junior doctors in the smaller Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association already voted for strikes in January (97% for, 75% turnout), and will be out on 15 March. The...

Part of the reason I moved from the ambulance service into working at a GP was because I was fed up of taking patients to sit for hours outside A&E. I thought there’d be more chance to access the services people needed directly by seeing them in the community. Michael came into the surgery. He’d had a few episodes of chest pain when walking up the stairs recently. We have a great referral system for someone like Michael. He didn’t need acute A&E treatment, but it was important that he got a fairly quick specialist assessment for cardiac disease. So, I referred him to the “Rapid Access Chest...

The World Health Organization says that Covid is at a “transition point” — probably moving into being a “background” disease, always there, with occasional flare-ups (and a continuing large burden of “post-Covid” conditions). We’re ending this special column, for now anyway, because the measures needed on the Covid danger now tend to merge into public health measures for infectious disease more generally. They are still urgent: • a sustained public health testing-and-surveillance system • good sick pay for all • restore NHS funding and repeal privatisation • requisition private hospitals to...

The RCN looks likely to call a 48-hour strike on 1-3 March, with a reduction of derogations in A&E, intensive care, and cancer units. Unison is thought to be looking for unified strike action with other unions. Escalation and co-ordination are vital and supported by members on the picket lines. For the strikes to win a strategy of increasing action over a short period of time will be much more effective than a long haul of strike days here and there. It’s also important that striking members articulate their demands to maintain pressure on the union leaderships. The RCN demand of 5% above...

Tens of thousands of nurses (RCN) and ambulance service staff (Unite and GMB) walked out on Monday 6 February in a pay dispute, in the first coordinated day of health strikes in this strike wave. Nurses and ambulance workers have previously been striking separately since late last year. Nurses will also walk out on Tuesday 7 February, Unison ambulance staff on Friday 10th, and physiotherapists on Thursday 9th, making the week "probably the most disruptive in NHS history" according to Medical Director Stephen Powis. NHS bosses are putting pressure on the government to reopen pay negotiations...