A billion pounds. A million waiting patients. Just two ways to measure the ongoing cost of industrial action from staff in England’s public health system.
Staff including nurses and ambulance workers first walked out late last year in industrial action over pay and working conditions they argue make it hard for hospitals to recruit and retain a healthy workforce.
Although some of this action has come to an end, the costly health services strikes continue, with doctors expected to walk out next week.
One senior health boss recently estimated hospitals had spent more than £1 billion ($1.22 billion) covering strikes from junior doctors alone.
And the National Health Service announced this week that the number of appointments canceled due to strikes had finally passed one million.
Since walk-outs began last December, 1,015,067 acute inpatient and outpatient appointments have had to be rearranged, official figures showed on Monday.
Dr Vin Diwakar, the country’s national medical director for secondary care and transformation, said in a statement that these numbers “reveal just part of the relentless impact of strikes over the last ten months.”
“We know that each appointment rescheduled is incredibly difficult for patients and families, and as we prepare for further joint action next week, there is precious little time for staff and services to recover.”
Labor unions — who argue pay has risen far behind inflation — say that better pay will help the NHS fill vacancies and keep existing staff employed in its overstretched workforce. Already facing growing demand from patients, the service will need to be stronger than ever as the population ages.
Ministers, on the other hand, say doctors are asking for unaffordable pay hikes that could themselves contribute to high inflation and the cost of living crisis facing the country.
With the toll of each strike putting extra pressure on long surgery waiting lists, industry leaders have called for resolution once and for all.
Deputy chief executive of hospital leadeship body NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said in a statement: “How bad does it have to get before we see an end to these damaging and demoralising industrial disputes?
“The immediate concern has to be with patients — more than a million and counting — whose care or treatment has been delayed.”
Hospitals were making “every effort” to mitigate the effects of ongoing walk-outs, she said, adding that the official figures only tell part of the story.
This tally, she said, captures appointments that have already been made. But “thousands more patients will be affected because [hospitals] are simply not booking in care for strike days known well in advance.”
“As the costs of the strikes rise — a billion pounds so far — we have to ask again, what price a resolution?” she added. “With resources severely stretched as we head into winter, this is a wholly unwelcome additional burden the NHS can ill-afford.”
Rory Deighton, director of the acute network at insudstry body, NHS Confederation says the cost of strikes could end up leading “to cutbacks elsewhere” as it hit already-stretched budgets.
“As public frustration and cancelled appointments grows ahead of what is looking like a bleak winter, the government and [union leaders] must talk to each other to find a solution that brings an end to this prolonged war of attrition.”
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