NHS and health

Push forward after May Day weekend strikes

The return to strikes by nurses’ union RCN, from 8pm on 30 April until 2 May, is an important opportunity to revive and accelerate the pay fight in the NHS. Unite members in various NHS trusts, including several ambulance trusts, will also strike on 1 and 2 May. If GMB members in the NHS also reject the pay offer in their ballot closing 28 April (possible, despite the GMB leadership recommending acceptance), their members in ambulance trusts and elsewhere in the NHS could also strike, officially from mid-May, but sooner if GMB members refuse to cross other unions’ pickets. Although junior...

NHS: press forward on pay

As the RCN and some Unite health branches prepare for more industrial action, the Tories have taken the RCN to court to try to stop the action. Stephen Barclay, the Health and Social Care minister, says that the original ballot closed at midday on 2 Nov 2022 and therefore its six-month mandate does not cover strikes on 2 May. The RCN has said that the strike (from 8pm 30 April to 8pm 2 May) will continue, and accuses the Tories of bullying. This use of the courts by the Tories and employers could become commonplace if the next raft of anti-trade union law, the Strikes (Minimum Service Level)...

Support the junior doctors!

Junior doctors in the British Medical Association (BMA) are discussing further strikes for “pay restoration”, after seven days of strikes in March and April. They will not strike alongside other NHS workers at the start of May, but their leaders have indicated a desire for coordinated action. The BMA calculates real-terms pay has fallen 26% since 2008 – one of the biggest cuts for any group of workers. It is calling for a real-terms pay rise this year and a clear timetable to restore pay through a 35% increase. The government has responded by offering another real-terms pay cut and refusing to...

RCN nurses to strike on 1-2 May

Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in England have rejected the government’s derisory offer on NHS pay. Nurses recognised the offer did nothing to redress pay erosion and nothing to solve the job-vacancy crisis that is crushing the NHS. It got nowhere near the original union claim for inflation plus 5%. 54% of members, on a 61% turnout, went against the recommendation made by the union nationally. New strike dates, without derogations, have been announced from 8pm on 30 April to 8pm on 2 May. These days will allow reignition of the dispute alongside the BMA junior doctors action...

Give junior doctors their pay rise!

The junior doctors’ strikes for “pay restoration” on 11-15 April had a huge impact, with almost 200,000 hospital appointments and procedures in England cancelled — up by 20,000 from the strike days in March. The NHS’s national medical director publicly described the impact as “colossal”. This when NHS services are already desperately overstretched. But if NHS workers cannot turn the tide against a government that is determined to run down the health service, that overstretching will get worse and worse. Junior doctor activists pushing for an escalation of strikes, and greater coordination with...

Unison Health delegates protest

A fringe meeting on pay, organised by “Time for Real Change”, on the first day of this year’s Unison Health sector conference, attracted 40 delegates (17 April). It decided that we needed an ongoing network of health activists to continue organising on pay restoration. On 18 April the conference passed emergency motion 1 from the top table which noted the vote to accept the offer and which said the union will seek implementation. Speeches have been made against the Service Group Exec’s ballot recommendation to accept the offer, but we have been unable to get a vote on any wording about that...

NHS "reject" campaign discusses plans

The NHS pay consultation ballots of the biggest health unions, RCN and Unison, are due to close on Friday 14 April. The Vote Reject campaign has delivered tens of thousands of leaflets across the country, and is bringing together workers from all the health unions to organise against the offer. Places where the campaign has a good levels of activism expect a strong No vote. However, in some areas many members will be untouched by the debate, and, without a convincing argument about how to win a better deal, may well be tempted by the unconsolidated “bribe” payment for 2022-23. RCN members, who...

How the NHS failed on Covid control

In November 2022 the government’s Industrial Injury Advisory Panel found that there is a “large body of consistent supporting evidence” that health and social care workers “have been exposed to significantly increased risk” of infection, illness and death due to Covid-19. Nobody has counted, but it is thought that over 1,500 NHS and social care staff died of Covid-19. Many of these lives might have been saved by simple infection control measures. NHS’s Covid safety measures were and still remain astonishingly inadequate. Although some individuals won safety improvements in their work areas and...

Junior doctors stand firm

Junior doctors, who struck for three days in March, struck for four days from 11 April. They are demanding “pay restoration” — a clear timetable for reversal of the 26% real terms pay cut they have suffered since 2008. For the first time in its history, the British Medical Association (BMA) has set up a strike fund . Taking only her normal doctor’s salary rather than the increased payment for working for the union part-time, the deputy chair of the BMA’s Council, socialist junior doctor Emma Runswick, has donated £22,000 . Grace Allport, a junior doctor in the North West, told Solidarity :...

Campaign for "no" vote in health

Consultation ballots on the derisory offer to NHS workers opened on 28 March 2023. The Vote Reject campaign has delivered tens of thousands of leaflets ( click here ) across the country, and is bringing together workers from all the health unions to organise against the offer. The campaign is starting to articulate ideas for an escalation of action alongside the BMA junior doctors if the offer is rejected. The petition for an Emergency General meeting of the RCN has been restarted, and emergency motions for Unison health conference (17-19 April) are circulating. It will be difficult to win a...

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