Warning comes on eve of England’s 61,000 junior doctors beginning four-day action
Junior doctors may keep striking for another year in their bitter pay dispute with the government, despite NHS leaders’ growing alarm about how the industrial action is disrupting patient care.
Trainee medics in England could even hold a week-long stoppage to escalate their campaign of industrial action to secure a 35% pay rise from the health secretary, Steve Barclay.
Continue reading...With real pay down 26% since 2008 and demoralised workplaces, medics are striking not out of militancy but from deep-rooted frustration
A four-day strike this week by junior doctors in England will pit angry medics keen to secure a 35% pay rise against government ministers who scorn their demands.
The walkout from Tuesday morning to Saturday morning will be the most disruptive in the 75-year history of the NHS.
Continue reading...Offer includes two one-off payments – 2% bonus and 4% Covid payment – plus pay rise of about 5%
Health unions hailed a historic victory on Thursday, after Steve Barclay made a significant new pay offer aimed at ending NHS strikes in England, in a climbdown that could embolden other unions at loggerheads with the government.
After months of rolling strikes involving thousands of NHS workers including nurses, ambulance staff and physiotherapists, the government ditched its claim that this year’s pay deal could not be reopened and offered a one-off bonus worth up to 8.2%.
Continue reading...Offer to unions involved in strikes in England expected to include one-off payment of up to 6% for this year
The health secretary, Steve Barclay, is expected to announce a formal pay offer to key unions involved in NHS strikes in England, including a one-off payment of up to 6% for this year, in an effort to end months of industrial action.
Last-minute talks between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the unions were understood to be continuing on Thursday morning, but an offer was expected to be made public later in the day.
Continue reading...Downing Street spokesperson also says inquiry into former chancellor’s affairs to be ‘conducted swiftly’
There are two urgent questions in the Commons later. At 12.30pm Caroline Lucas (Green) is asking one about the child asylum seekers who have gone missing from hotel accommodation provided by the Home Office, and that will be followed by Ben Bradshaw (Lab) asking one about the Church of England’s stance on equal marriage.
After those are over Damian Hinds, the justice minister, will deliver a statement about the probation inspectorate.
Continue reading...Health secretary Steve Barclay urges unions to lobby PM over improved pay offer for striking nurses and ambulance workers
The health and social care secretary Steve Barclay has privately urged trade unions to help him make the case to the Treasury and No 10 for extra money for nurses, ambulance workers and other NHS staff in an extraordinary twist to the escalating crisis over health service strikes, the Observer can reveal.
A serious cabinet split has opened up, with Barclay now wanting more money for all NHS staff except doctors – while Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, are refusing to budge from their insistence that no more can be offered.
Continue reading...The U-turn may help to end wave of strikes, though funding it could require cuts to key services
Steve Barclay has privately conceded he will have to increase his pay offer to NHS staff, in a U-turn that may help to end the growing wave of strikes.
However, the Treasury has made clear he will have to find any new cash from within the existing health budget, raising the prospect of cuts to key services.
Continue reading...Some suggest political naivety played a role as No 10 admits it is taking a ‘new approach’ by discussing pay
At the end of talks over next year’s pay deal for NHS workers, which broke up without resolution on Monday, union negotiators told Steve Barclay: “You know we’re going ahead with strikes?” One of those in the room said the health secretary shrugged his shoulders in resignation. “I accept that,” he told them.
But the fact ministers sat down with unions to discuss pay at all is, in itself, a breakthrough. For weeks the government has been indicating that, while it would meet unions to avert further strikes, reopening this year’s pay deal was not an option.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing leader criticises ‘belligerence’ in meeting with Steve Barclay at which ministers refused to discuss pay
Nurses’ strikes will go ahead this week after a meeting between the union and the health secretary ended in deadlock, with the Royal College of Nursing condemning ministers’ “belligerence” for refusing to discuss pay.
Six hundred military personnel from all three armed forces will start training to drive ambulances to cover for striking NHS workers across the UK later this month. A further 150 are being readied to act as logistical support, defence sources said, with training for both groups to start “shortly”.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing says Steve Barclay refused to discuss pay at meeting on Monday; Welsh nurses to strike after last-minute talks fail. This blog is now closed
Pat Cullen, the Royal College of Nursing’s general secretary, told ITV this morning that there was no point talking to Steve Barclay, the health secretary, if he was not prepared to discuss pay. She said
What I’m saying … to the health secretary this morning, is if you don’t want to speak to me directly about nurses’ pay, we have engaged with the conciliation service Acas, they can do that through Acas, but our door is absolutely wide open and it appears at the minute that theirs is totally shut …
Fundamentally, I need to get to a table and talk to them about pay. This isn’t just me, it’s the 320,000 nurses that voted for strike action … They voted through an independent ballot that we carried out and surely to goodness you couldn’t look at one of those people this morning in the eye and say: ‘You’re not worth an extra brown penny’. In my mind they absolutely are.
I think it’s a very challenging international picture. About a third of the world’s economies are predicted to be in recession, either this year or next.
We’re no different in this country and truthfully, it is likely to get worse before it gets better, which makes it even more difficult when we have big public sector strikes going on at the moment.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing and Unison call on health secretary to negotiate with them to avoid action at Christmas and new year
Health unions made a dramatic offer on Saturday night to suspend a wave of planned strikes that threatens to cripple the NHS over Christmas and the new year if ministers agree to open serious discussions over pay.
The moves by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the country’s biggest union, Unison, are the first signs of flexibility by either side in a dispute that has been deadlocked for weeks.
Continue reading...The prime minister says due process needs to be followed after revelations about Baroness Mone in the Guardian
Everyone is hard up at the moment – including the Conservative party, it seems. According to Bloomberg’s Alex Wickham, the party is raising membership fees by 56%.
This morning Steve Barclay said Rishi Sunak was taking “a very strong stand in terms of the priority of getting inflation down”. (See 10.02am.) But not for Tory members, it seems.
Continue reading...PM responds to question from Keir Starmer about Tory peer who appears to have received millions from PPE firm awarded government contracts
Rishi Sunak has said he was “shocked” to read allegations surrounding the Conservative peer Michelle Mone, after Keir Starmer used prime minister’s questions to ask him how she appeared to have received millions from the profits of a PPE company.
“How did his colleague, Baroness Mone, end up with nearly £30m of taxpayers’ money in her bank account?” the Labour leader asked, citing information revealed by the Guardian.
Continue reading...While health secretary Steve Barclay says he will not negotiate, unions suggest the compromise reached in Scotland could help avert strikes
Ministers were under intense pressure last night to open new pay talks that could avert a devastating series of NHS strikes as health unions suggested a deal could be struck if both sides were willing to negotiate and compromise.
Amid claims from Labour and from NHS sources that ministers appeared to be playing politics and deliberately “spoiling for a fight”, union leaders strongly suggested that an improved, but still sub-inflation, offer similar to that made to Scottish health unions at the end of last month by the Holyrood government – which has led to strike threats being lifted north of the border – could help break the deadlock elsewhere in the UK.
Continue reading...Dehenna Davison, seen as one of the rising stars of the Conservative party, has announced she is standing down at the next election
Downing Street has confirmed that the inquiry into bullying allegations about Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, is being expanded to cover claims relating to his period as Brexit secretary, my colleague Pippa Crerar reports.
The inquiry was originally set up to consider two complaints, relating to his time as justice secretary and foreign secretary. But at the Downing Street lobby briefing a No 10 spokesperson said:
I can confirm that the prime minister has now asked the investigator to add a further formal complaint relating to conduct at the Department for Exiting the European Union and to establish the facts in line with the existing terms of reference.
Continue reading...Capital budget of £12bn a year to shrink to £11.7bn, putting Tories’ claim 40 hospitals in England will be built or renovated in doubt
Plans by the government to construct and renovate 40 hospitals in England could be delayed because of new analysis suggesting the health and social care department’s capital spending budget faces a real-terms cut of £700m next year, according to the Liberal Democrats.
With some hospitals said to be in dire need of repair, the health secretary twice refused to say on Sunday that the NHS was functioning properly and instead admitted it was under “severe pressure”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Steve Barclay not tasked with manifesto commitment, raising fears that shortage of doctors in England will continue
Rishi Sunak has fuelled concerns that the government will miss its target of recruiting 6,000 more GPs in England, which was promised in the 2019 Conservative manifesto.
The prime minister omitted the pledge from his appointment letter to the health secretary, Steve Barclay, laying out expectations for what should be delivered by March 2024.
Continue reading...Mandatory programme named after Oliver McGowan, whose mother led a campaign after his death in 2016
Mandatory training for health and care staff in England to support people with a learning disability and autistic people has been launched following a grieving mother’s four-year campaign.
Paula McGowan’s 18-year-old son, Oliver, who had a mild learning disability and autism, died after doctors “arrogantly” gave him antipsychotic medication despite his family’s warnings that they were unsuitable.
Continue reading...Exclusive: change to registration process will pave way for thousands of staff trained overseas to come to UK, says government
Ministers will introduce legislation as soon as parliament returns on Monday to tackle the NHS’s worsening staffing crisis by making it easier for overseas nurses and dentists to work in the UK.
The move is part of a drive by the health secretary, Steve Barclay, to increase overseas recruitment to help plug workforce gaps in health and social care.
Continue reading...Analysis: Kwasi Kwarteng and Thérèse Coffey could be among the big winners if Truss becomes PM
Liz Truss has three weeks before she is likely to walk through No 10’s black door as prime minister, facing a difficult in-tray. Here we take a look at how senior roles could shape up.
Continue reading...