Pat Cullen – respect nursing, or strikes could continue ‘until Christmas’
This morning’s shows heavily focussed on the crisis in the NHS, after the Royal College of Nursing voted against the government’s pay deal, meaning further strike action. The RCN’s General Secretary Pat Cullen stood by her union’s members, telling Laura Kuenssberg that patients were at risk at all times due to the working conditions of nurses and doctors, not just on strike days. She said only ministers could stop strikes, and that they needed to return with an improved offer:
Greg Hands – ‘it’s a very fair and reasonable offer’
Defending the government, Conservative Party Chair Greg Hands was vague on what further steps would be taken while they waited for the results from all the unions, but he was keen to stress that the RCN leadership, including Pat Cullen herself, had initially recommended the deal to its members, and that the vote had only narrowly gone against it:
Wes Streeting – ‘deeply worried’ about patient safety
One of the concerning aspects of the dispute is the possibility that nurses will expand their action to remove protections for emergency and cancer care, potentially creating further risk for patients. The Shadow Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting attacked the government on its general record with the NHS, and spoke about Labour’s plan to greatly expand the healthcare workforce. He did however urge the unions to think twice before expanding their strike action in ways that could be harmful:
Nurses striking with junior doctors would ‘remove safety net’
Another danger would be the possibility of nurses and junior doctors going on strike at the same time. Pat Cullen told Kuenssberg that there were no plans in place for such an action, but she neglected to rule it out. On Kuenssberg’s panel, NHS Providers deputy chief Saffron Cordery described the possibility as ‘incredibly worrying’, and said that protections that had been in place in previous strikes would disappear.
‘This is pretty awful for you, isn’t it’
Finally, Greg Hands spoke to Trevor Phillips about bad polling results for the Conservatives. There are independent predictions that they could lose more than 1000 seats in the upcoming local elections, but Hands claimed they were fighting really hard to improve their chances. Phillips asked if he was simply trying to ‘massage expectations’:
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