Many NHS workers came out on strike for four hours (07.00 am to 11.00 am) on Monday morning (October 13) after a ballot prompted by anger at the government’s refusal to allow a one per cent across the board pay rise that had been agreed by their independent pay review board.
The short sharp strike involving workers from six unions – during which emergency services and maternity services for women in labour were unaffected – will be followed by a week’s work to rule in many departments.
The unions claim that the pay of many NHS workers has been cut by 15 per cent under the coalition government.
This is a national dispute with the government rather than with local NHS employers and plans were in place at the Great Western Hospital and Savernake Hospital to ensure emergency services were maintained.
However at GWH non-urgent maternity appointments were postponed until after 11.00am, as were planned caesarean deliveries. Community midwives started visiting patients at 11.00am and antenatal clinics before 11.00am were cancelled.
The disruption came on a bad day for the government with The Times revealing that both Downing Street and George Osborne have admitted that the Lansley root-and-branch reorganisation of the NHS was “a huge strategic error” and the biggest mistake the Tories have made in government.
The Times reported: “An ally of George Osborne said: ‘’George kicks himself for not having spotted it and stopped it. He had the opportunity then and did not take it’.”
The Lansley Health and Social Care Act is thought to have cost the NHS £3 billion in reorganisation costs and distracted senior managers for two years while new organisations were crreated and rolled out and others scrapped.
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