Steve Barclay has “lost the public” and striking nurses “are not going to go away”, the head of the Royal College of Nursing, Pat Cullen, has warned.
Her comments came after Barclay, the health secretary, described the industrial action by nurses as “premature” and “disrespectful” to other trade unions who are set to meet to discuss the government’s pay offer on Tuesday.
Through the NHS Staff Council, the unions will consider the offer of a 5% pay increase for 2023/24 along with a one-off payment worth between £1,655 and £3,789 for the current financial year for nurses in England.
Cullen, the general secretary of the RCN, urged the health secretary “not to be disrespectful” to nurses amid their “biggest strike yet” over the bank holiday.
Cullen also confirmed nurses will be re-balloted this month for further industrial action later in the year, meaning the pay dispute could continue until Christmas.
“It will end when our government will do the decent thing for nurses, does the decent thing for the people of England and actually does the decent thing for the NHS,” said Cullen. “What our members are saying to the secretary of state of this government is we are not going to go away.”
Thousands of nurses walked out at 8pm on Sunday in what was described by the RCN as the “biggest strike yet” because it included nursing staff from emergency departments, intensive care and cancer care for the first time.
The 28-hour action, which will end just before midnight on Monday, comes after a high court judge ruled it would be unlawful for it to continue into Tuesday as originally planned.
Speaking outside University College hospital in London on Monday, Cullen said Barclay should “spend less time writing papers for the royal court of justice to take our nursing staff to court and get round a table and start to do the decent thing for them”.
She added: “Steve Barclay may have won the legal argument that day last Thursday but what he did was he lost the public and certainly lost any respect that our nursing staff had for him and this government.”
One NHS trust on Monday reported that its intensive care unit had had its capacity “significantly” reduced as it was not able to secure enough nurse staffing levels during the strike action.
Nick Hulme, chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS foundation trust, told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “We got an exemption from the RCN [Royal College of Nursing] so we were allowed to ask … the nurses to come in to cover that area – not to the staffing levels we would normally have, but to safe staffing levels.
“Unfortunately, nurses decided, as is entirely within their right – they are not obliged to turn up even if we ask the RCN – and unfortunately we weren’t able to get sufficient nurses to cover the intensive care areas, so we had to reduce the capacity significantly and transfer patients out.”
Last month, RCN members rejected the government’s offer of a 5% pay rise this year and a cash payment for last year. The union’s leadership had recommended its members accept the offer.
Earlier on Monday, speaking about the offer and the decision by RCN members to reject it, Cullen told Good Morning Britain: “There were some elements of the pay offer that were attractive to our ruling council, for example around safe nurse staffing policy work that’s required in order for us to be able to move to a place where we have safe nurse staffing legislation in place.
“Another element that was attractive to put to our members was around a separate pay structure for nursing that recognises that they are a critical profession, and their expertise.
“Those elements were put to our members. Our council made the decision that it wasn’t for them to hold that money back from our nursing staff who are really struggling.
“There’s no credibility issues here, our nursing staff have spoken up loud and clear.”
