Labour 'enabling NHS chaos' as strikes loom

HEALTH Secretary Wes Streeting was accused of “enabling chaos” in the NHS as patients brace for a fresh wave of strikes.

- By Jonathan Walker WHITEHALL EDITOR

Nurses, doctors and other health workers are threatening walkouts in rows over pay and reforms announced last month as part of the Government's 10-year health plan.

It follows the recent five days of action by resident doctors and comes despite Labour boasting it had put an end to strikes by giving health workers inflation-busting pay rises.

Shadow Health Secretary Stuart Andrew said: "When doctors abandon the front line for the picket line, it is a direct threat to patient care."

He said the Government had encouraged union militancy by handing out huge pay rises without securing a single reform in return.

Mr Andrew said: "The message from Wes Streeting was clearmilitant behaviour is rewarded."

He warned that the Government's new employment rights laws would make strike action even more likely in the future, by removing a rule that 50% of eligible union members must take part in a strike ballot for the vote to be valid.

One of Labour's first acts after winning power last year was to announce a series of inflation-busting pay rises in the public sector.

Doctors and dentists were awarded a rise of 6% while senior NHS managers received a rise of 5% and resident doctors were given pay rises of around 22% over two years.