Slow News Day

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Yesterday must have been a slow news day at The Guardian for the paper to publish this complete non-story about a possible strike over seven-day working in the NHS.

The stupidity of the trade unions still manages to surprise me occasionally, because an extra £8 billion for the NHS means more staff and more union members potentially.

Yet instead of welcoming the announcement, in principle at least, the RCN and Unison both start sounding off about strike action.  

Health unions threaten to strike if seven-day NHS means pay cuts

Unison and Royal College of Nursing fear proposal could be paid for by cutting payments to staff who work unsocial hours

Jeremy Hunt acknowledged that seven-day working would involve ‘some extra cost, which we will have to find’. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/Rex Shutterstock

By Matthew Weaver - The Guardian

Health unions have threatened to strike over David Cameron’s plans to create a seven-day-a-week health service if the initiative cuts existing payments for working antisocial hours.

The prime minister will use his first major speech since his re-election to guarantee care to patients “wherever they are and whenever they need it”.

He is also expected to reassure the public that the NHS is “safe in our hands” and to renew his vow to boost health funding by £8bn by 2020.

Speaking at a GP surgery in the West Midlands, Cameron will promise more GPs, faster access to new drugs and treatments and a greater focus on mental health and healthy living. A GP access fund, which will ensure that 18 million patients will have access to a GP in the evenings and at weekends, will be expanded to ensure that more seven-day access will be available.

“Our commitment is to free healthcare for everyone – wherever you are and whenever you need it,” the prime minister says in advance copies of his speech. We can become the first country in the world to deliver a truly seven-day NHS.”

Unison, the biggest health union, warned that it would ballot its members on strike action if a seven-day-a-week NHS operation was to be paid for by cutting staff pay.

Unison’s head of health, Christina McAnea, said: “Any move to a seven-day NHS must not cost staff a penny. Come after our unsocial hours payments and we will ballot for industrial action.

“As the biggest healthcare union, we are always willing to work with employers to improve and extend NHS services if this is based on patients’ needs and is not just another cost-cutting exercise.”

The Royal College of Nursing chief executive, Peter Carter, also warned that nurses would resist any changes to payments they receive for working outside office hours. Speaking to the Independent, Carter said: “Any attacks on [extra payments for] unsocial hours [and] weekend working payments, would be strongly resisted.

“The membership is quite clear: unsocial hours, weekend working, Christmas Day and bank holidays – they get a very modest higher level of remuneration. Any attack on that and I do fear it would result in industrial action.”

The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, accused the unions of “jumping the gun”. He told BBC1’s Breakfast: “We haven’t made any proposals whatsoever about changing nurses’ terms and conditions ... Eight days into a new government, I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t negotiate on air about every single aspect of doctors’ and nurses’ conditions. That’s not our proposal.”

He added: “I think the RCN should talk to their members and, rather than grandstanding like this, should come and talk to me. They want the NHS to be the safest in the world, I want that and it’s what patients who use the NHS want, and I’m sure if we work together we can find a way of delivering that.”

During the election campaign the Conservatives said they supported a plan produced by the NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, to fill a funding gap estimated at £30bn a year by 2020.

Cameron is expected to describe the health service as the embodiment of “one-nation” politics. He is also expected to deny that staff will have to work longer hours – arguing that instead there needs to be a more flexible approach to work patterns so doctors and nurses are available at the right times.

The BMA council chairman, Dr Mark Porter, said: “Crucially, the £8bn promised by the prime minister is the bare minimum needed for the NHS to simply stand still and will not pay for extra services.

“The real question for the government is how they plan to deliver additional care when the NHS is facing a funding gap of £30bn and there is a chronic shortage of GPs and hospital doctors, especially in acute and emergency medicine, where access to 24-hour care is vital.

“Without the answer to these questions this announcement is empty headline-grabbing and shows that, even after polling day, politicians are still avoiding the difficult questions and continuing to play games with the NHS.”

Hunt acknowledged that seven-day working would involve “some extra cost, which we will have to find”, but said it might be more cost-effective, for example, to boost capacity by using existing operating theatres at weekends, rather than building new facilities to use Monday to Friday.

Pressed on whether the government would be committing any extra money to the NHS, Hunt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If you look at what the prime minister is saying today he said “a minimum of £8bn”. The significance of this is that Andy Burnham, my opposite number in Labour said David Cameron’s promises on the NHS will expire on 8 May and in fact here you have a prime minister who in his first major speech as prime minister of a new government is saying: ‘No, I’m making that commitment. The minimum £8bn extra I promised for the NHS will be delivered.’”

Hunt added: “The chancellor has also reiterated that. For us as Conservatives, we want to give people security at every stage of their lives and the NHS being there for you when you need it is a central part of what a Conservative government will do.”

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