Yousaf demands more money for NHS pay to stop strike
SCOTLAND’S Health Secretary is demanding the UK Government provide extra funding for NHS pay to stop “catastrophic” strike action by nurses.
Humza Yousaf, along with the Welsh Health Minister Eluned Morgan, have written a joint letter to Westminster Health Secretary Steve Barclay ahead of the Autumn Statement by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on Thursday.
The move comes days after members of the Royal College of Nursing voted in favour of strike action for the first time in the 106-year history of the union in protest over pay and staffing levels.
There are currently some 6,000 nursing and midwifery posts unfilled in Scotland.
Mr Yousaf said the planned strike would be “catastrophic” but that he does not have funds for the pay rise the RCN is demanding. The RCN says real-terms pay is 16 per cent lower than a decade ago. It wants a rise of 5% above the retail price index level of inflation, which stands at 12.6%.
But Mr Yousaf has said he had mustered all of his resources to offer an average 7& rise to nurses, rising to 11% for the lowest paid.
The letter by Mr Yousaf and Ms Morgan said: “The Royal College of Nursing have announced a sweeping legal mandate for industrial action across the UK. In Scotland, they have joined several other unions representing NHS staff in gaining a legal mandate for industrial action with ballots expected to confirm a mandate in the rest of the UK.
“The risk to the NHS of industrial action this winter is profound, and we all need to do all we can to avert industrial action. The NHS across the UK continues to feel the effects of the pandemic, and any action is likely to have catastrophic effects in all parts of the UK.”
Their letter added that anger among NHS staff amid the cost-of-living crisis “is entirely understandable” and blamed former prime minister Liz Truss’s miniBudget for high interest rates and the spike in inflation.
They went on to urge the Chancellor not to reimpose a policy of austerity through extensive spending cuts saying such a move would be “a disaster for our public services, including the NHS, at a time when they need more investment, not less”.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives accused Mr Yousaf of presiding over “500 days of failure”, as they repeated calls for his resignation.
The party said that since the Health Secretary took office in May 2021, a new record low for the percentage of A&E patients waiting more than four hours has been set 14 times.
A further analysis by the party shows that – on the three different measures used (four, eight and 12 hours) – recordworst A&E waiting-time statistics have been set 68 times.
The Scottish Government’s own target for A&E waits is for 95% of patients to be seen within four hours, yet for the last five weeks less than 95% of emergency patients in Scotland have been seen within 12 hours.