Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been criticised for his response to NHS strikes, as one union said he refused to discuss the issue of pay.
Today (December 20) marked the second day of strikes from members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). Picket lines were formed at Merseyside hospitals as tens of thousands of nurses walked out up and down the country in an ongoing row about pay and conditions.
Further strikes will take place tomorrow, as members of UNISON, GMB and Unite working in the ambulance service will walk out. Additionally, staff in Liverpool covering a range of professions at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital will strike.
READ MORE: NHS patients waiting for treatment show support for striking nurses
The Health Secretary addressed the strikes among health service staff in a series of tweets. Mr Barclay said: "I hugely value the work of our NHS staff & it’s disappointing some union members are going ahead with further strike action - my door remains open to further talks. Unions have called for industrial action to cause maximum disruption & inevitably this will have an impact.
"My priority remains patient safety. We have contingency plans in place & I have met with ambulance union reps today from Unison, Unite, GMB & the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives urging them to honour their commitment to provide responses to life-threatening emergency calls.
"People should come forward for emergency care & attend appointments unless contacted. Ultimately union demands are unaffordable during these challenging times but as I’ve said before, I’m open to engaging with unions on how to make the NHS a better place to work."
However, Unite the union said its meeting with Mr Barclay proved pointless as he "refused to discuss pay".
Unite national lead officer Onay Kasab said: “The meeting was made entirely pointless by the attitude of Stephen Barclay who refused to discuss pay. How he hopes to get movement and resolve the dispute without discussing the key issue is mystifying.
“It is disgraceful that the government is failing to take action to avoid NHS strikes, the unions are willing to talk but the government isn’t.
“Barclay was only prepared to talk about derogations, which was futile as these have been thrashed out and agreed down to a fine tooth-comb at a local level.
“His appeal that the agreements on emergency cover are respected was frankly insulting. Our members are taking strike action as an absolute last resort as they witness the NHS crumble on a daily basis. Not only are they committed to covering emergency calls tomorrow, but our members will immediately leave picket lines if a trust for any reason can’t cope with emergencies."
ECHO reporters spoke to striking nurses on picket lines at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital and the Liverpool Women's Hospital today. Nurses spoke about being overworked and conditions on wards being unsafe.
At the Royal, one striking nurse said : "I worked a shift recently, I had been asked to do an overtime shift because the ward wasn't safe and when I got there, the skill mix wasn't right on the ward and then I got moved from the ward because there was dire need in other areas.
"When I questioned that and said, 'well that leaves this ward short', the response was, 'there is not a single ward in the hospital that has got a safe number of staff in.'
She continued: "This is a normal day, a regular occurrence, there's patients in corridors, nurses going home in tears because they can't provide the care, nobody wants to leave a patient that is soiled, but when you haven't actually physically got anywhere to change them or the staff to be able to provide that care - that is what is destroying nurses' morale right now.
"If it was your loved one in that situation it would break your heart and it breaks our hearts to not be able to provide the care that we need to."
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