Strikes UK – latest: Health secretary says ‘patients will pay the price’ as nurses prepare to walk out

We’re pausing our coverage of today’s strike action.

Join us again soon for the latest updates as thousands of NHS nurses walk out again in a row over pay and conditions.

Enjoy the rest of your morning.

Welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of the NHS nurses’ strike across England on Wednesday.

Patients are being warned of delays and disruptions in services, both today and tomorrow, as thousands of NHS nurses strike in England.

The walkouts by Royal College of Nursing members would affect about one out of every four hospitals and community services.

The NHS also faces further ambulance strikes next Monday, which sources indicate will go ahead, and new strikes are to be announced for February by union GMB.

Nursing staff from more than 55 NHS trusts will take part in industrial action for two days following similar action in December.

Thousands of operations and appointments are expected to be cancelled during the two consecutive days of strike action. Almost 30,000 needed to be rescheduled following December’s nurse strikes.

People who require urgent care should call 999, or call 111 for non-urgent care.

Patients will suffer if ministers bow to nurses’ demands for pay rises, the health secretary warned as tens of thousands of NHS staff prepare to walk out today.

Writing exclusively in The Independent, Steve Barclay said any boost to wages would “take billions of pounds away from where we need it most”.

He wrote: “Unaffordable pay hikes will mean cutting patient care and stoking the inflation that would make us all poorer.”

But the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has criticised him for “pitting nurses against patients”, branding the comments “a new low for the health secretary”.

Read The Independent’s detailed report.

NHS is trapped in a vicious cycle brought about by continued strikes along with extreme pressures in emergency care, ongoing high levels of flu, Covid and respiratory infections, a health leader has said.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, urged ministers to renew pay talks with trade unions in a bid to halt further industrial action.

He suggested waiting lists are likely to remain stubbornly high unless the government gives the “NHS a fighting chance”.

Mr Taylor told the PA news agency: “We’re now in the sixth week since strike action began and appear no closer to a solution.

“At the same time, the NHS continues to grapple with extreme pressure on its emergency care services and it is having to reschedule operations and outpatient appointments due to the strikes.”

“We’ve been saying for weeks that the strike action couldn’t have come at a more difficult time for the NHS, but we hoped a compromise would be reached by now to bring an end to the impasse.

“All the while this continues, the NHS won’t be able to break out of the vicious cycle it’s in. There is some pessimism about the current state of the NHS, but local services have been making serious inroads into reducing waiting lists,” he said.

Mr Taylor added: “NHS leaders know they face huge challenges in responding to the growing demand they are facing, but they need help from the Government in bringing an end to the dispute.”

NHS trusts must be able to tackle the immediate demand for emergency care alongside the waiting list for treatment, which currently stands at around seven million people, according to the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS organisations.

NHS leaders are fearing a “cumulative impact” of each additional strike day, it said, with more operations and outpatient appointments having to be rescheduled.

More than 4,500 operations will be cancelled alongside 25,000 cancelled outpatient appointments, an estimate suggested in case nursing strikes match the same level as December.

It would take the total cancellations to around 10,000 cancelled operations and more than 50,000 cancelled outpatient appointments, according to the NHS Confederation.

A nurse who has had to borrow money from his parents to get by each month has said that he is “disappointed” to be striking, but the “government has literally left us out in the cold”.

Nurses across different hospital trusts are to go on strike on January 18 and 19 in England as talks about pay and conditions with the Government have failed, according to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

Matt Tacey, 32, who lives in the East Midlands, told the PA news agency that he did not want to strike on Wednesday, but he, as well as fellow colleagues, have been “forced” into the position because “the Government just won’t enter any meaningful negotiations with us as a union”.

“You won’t find one single nurse that wants to be outside hospitals or places of work”, he added.

Nearly three in five Britons - some 57 per cent people - think the government is more to blame for the ongoing pay row with nurses lasting so long, a new poll suggests.

Just nine per cent of people said nurses are more at fault for the ongoing industrial dispute with nurses, according to an Ipsos poll.

The poll was taken by 1,080 British adults earlier this month.

It also found that a quarter of people felt both sides are at fault.

The new figures come as nursing staff from more than 55 NHS trusts will take part in industrial action for two days following December’s action.

The poll found that people were more sympathetic to NHS patients, nurses and ambulance workers compared to health worker unions, NHS management and the UK government.

Some 90 per cent of people said they have great deal or fair amount of sympathy for NHS patients, followed by 82 per cent for nurses and 80 per cent for ambulance workers.

The British government has been warned about the crippling impact of the ongoing industrial unrest in the country as analysis suggests recent strikes have caused a £6bn hit to the economy.

The fallout, however, is not limited to the economy, with schools set for huge disruption and NHS patients facing long delays after unions announced nursing and teaching strikes for February and March.

The government is also facing possible industrial action from ambulance staff, train drivers, postal workers, firefighters, Border Force officials, job centre staff and other civil servants. Unions bosses have also told The Independent about the push for more “coordinated” action in the weeks ahead.

The economic cost of the industrial unrest seen since the summer amounts to at least £6.6bn, according to The Independent’s analysis of estimates by industry chiefs and economists.

Former prime minister Gordon Brown has warned that NHS will “not be able to cope” with increasing demand unless significant health inequalities are closed.

In a new report by Mr Brown’s Our Scottish Future think tank, he has urged Scottish ministers to work with their Westminster counterparts to battle poverty-related health inequalities.

The poorest Scots are 72 per cent more likely to end up in hospital emergency beds than their affluent peers, according to the Closing The Gap survey written by researcher Andrew Mooney.

In the report’s foreword, Mr Brown said: “Scotland’s NHS will be unable to cope - and waiting lists will continue to be at record levels.”

“The NHS urgently needs more investment and fair remuneration for its hard-working nurses, ambulance workers and staff.

“This needs to be matched with a strategy to end health inequalities which disfigure our country and cut short too many lives.

“This strategy should be based on a co-operative approach, with Scotland working hand-in-hand with the rest of the UK.”

In response, a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We are determined to increase healthy life expectancy and reduce health inequalities, and we are already taking decisive action to do so.”