NHS strikers are playing a reckless game

Why did so many more people than usual die in mid-March? We may never know for sure. But it is difficult to dismiss the possibility that NHS strikes contributed to patient deaths in March, and therefore could be doing so again now. How many lives are junior doctors and nurses prepared to put at risk before they return to their medical duties?

It is a grim nadir to this season of industrial action, made all the more depressing because it had seemed, after the pay deal struck last month with nurses, that a spirit of rationality and compromise had broken out. Then, a 5 per cent rise and a one-off payment was accepted by a union which had started out asking for almost 20 per cent. It could have been a model for settling other public sector pay disputes. But instead of common sense spreading through the picket lines, it is militancy that is proving infectious.

And so it proved today, with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) voting to reject last month’s settlement and announcing more strike days. Their next strikes will coincide with the teachers’ walkout, risking total paralysis among two of the most important parts of the public sector. It also appears that the RCN is attempting to fit in as much disruption as possible before its strike mandate comes to an end in early May. This is unforgivable behaviour.

Not all unions representing nurses – and indeed not all nurses – have adopted the RCN’s selfish and reckless attitude. Unison health workers voted to accept the deal. They should be applauded for their sense of responsibility and public duty, and deserve to receive their new pay package. The Government ought to find a way of making that happen.

Nevertheless, it seems the Government is now losing control of the situation. It must prepare for the possibility that the most militant unions will never accept a sensible, sustainable settlement. And therefore, it must begin to make its case more clearly to the public.

Of course junior doctors work hard, often in tough circumstances, but the idea that they are penurious is nonsense. Generous NHS pension provision is the envy of every private sector worker, yet we hear little about it amid pay disputes. Nor about career progression that propels so many junior doctors to six-figure salaries later in their lives. Or the fact that the medical training on which such well-remunerated careers are based is subsidised by taxpayers.

Those taxpayers are keen to see NHS workers treated fairly. But when they understand the true extent of their pay, and then see the effects of militant strikes on healthcare provision, their sympathy will drain away. The strikers may feel all-powerful today, but they are playing with fire.