NHS leaders are making contingency plans as the biggest walkout in the health service’s history looms.
Ambulance staff and nurses are both set to go on strike on 6 February – taking industrial action on the same day for the first time ever.
Saffron Cordery, the interim chief executive of NHS Providers, has said the proposed walkouts are a “huge concern”.
She said: “Trusts have been warning for months that coordinated strikes were a possibility if the government and unions failed to reach an early agreement on this year’s pay award.”
Ms Cordery urged ministers to “get round the table with the unions urgently to deal with the key issue of pay for this financial year, otherwise there is no light at the end of the tunnel”.
The Royal College of Nursing has confirmed that further strikes will take place on 6 and 7 February in a long-running dispute over pay.
But yesterday, the GMB union also announced that more than 10,000 ambulance workers – including paramedics and call handlers – are also staging a walkout on 6 February.
“It could be the biggest day of industrial action the NHS has ever seen,” Ms Cordery warned.
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‘I work 30 hours overtime to top up pay’
‘A significant challenge’
Today, thousands of nurses are on strike at more than 55 NHS trusts in England in their second and final day of industrial action this week.
But…
