Summer NHS strikes loom as medics at ‘breaking point’

The NHS could be hit by yet another wave of strikes this summer as health unions react with fury over “unprecedented” job cuts at hospitals across England.

Trust leaders have cut thousands of doctors, nurses and other clinical staff in a last ditch bid to meet NHS England’s demands to fill a £6.6bn deficit.

Almost half (47 per cent) of trusts are already cutting services, over a third (37 per cent) are reducing clinical posts, and a quarter (26 per cent) have said they will need to close some services, such as rehab centres, diabetes services for children and end-of-life palliative care, a poll by NHS Providers found.

The NHS endured a wave of strikes by junior – now resident – doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff between 2022 and 2024 which caused huge disruption.

By July last year, almost 1.5 million acute inpatient and outpatient appointments had to be rescheduled before they were finally brought to an end with improved pay offers.

But after months of falling waiting lists, unions have grown impatient with ministers over the lack of a new pay offer. Their anger has increased following news of swathes of “devastating” staff cuts and have refused to rule out a return to the picket lines in protest.

Unite said it will “seek to oppose [job losses] wherever our members urge us to do which could include resorting to industrial action”. It said the latest cuts will “inevitably fall on staff with numbers already at breaking point”.

Sharon Graham, Unite chief, said: “This Prime Minister cannot continue with the Conservative legacy of running the NHS into the ground under the guise of ‘reforms’.

“Unite will be aggressively campaigning against any measures that are a byword for cuts or any downgrading to our members’ pay and conditions.”

The Government wants the NHS to shift towards preventing ill health in a bid to reduce the burden on treatment waiting lists, but trust leaders said this is not compatible with the needs of delivering financial recovery.

Dr Helen Fernandes, chair of the grassroots lobbying organisation Doctors’ Association UK, described the cuts as “unprecedented”.

She told The i Paper: “I’ve never seen this type of action in the NHS in all the time I’ve been a doctor. That’s because deficits have traditionally been signed off and rolled over into the next year so we seem to have reached a pinch point with the government playing hardball.”

Dr Fernandes said she understood that the present financial situation could not continue and that the NHS needed to become more financially accountable. She hoped the public could also understand the stress that further cuts will put staff under. “There is no letting up on the needs of patients,” she said.

Warnings that patients will suffer

Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association, said the public will be “deeply alarmed” that NHS trusts are “being forced to cut staff, close services, and ration care to meet severe savings targets”.

She said: “When rehabilitation centres close, end-of-life care beds are reduced, and clinical posts are eliminated, it’s patients who suffer.

“These are…harmful reductions that directly impact patient care and safety. No financial challenge justifies compromising patient safety.”

Unison head of health Helga Pile said: “Forcing the NHS to make drastic cuts after a decade and a half of underfunding is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

“Making trusts axe jobs and services will mean patients will have to wait longer to be seen and make staffing levels less safe.”

Unison said it will work with employers to look at where “sensible savings” can be made, such as reducing the use of costly agencies, management consultants and overpriced private provision.

“But where cuts will harm patient care and damage staffing, we will work with patient groups, local MPs and others to highlight the dangers, and push for a rethink,” a spokesman added.

Earlier this month the British Medical Association said it would hold a strike ballot after becoming impatient with the Department of Health. The doctors’ union has demanded a path to “pay restoration” – the same money in real terms that doctors received in 2008. The ballot will open on 27 May and close on 7 July.

Last year, resident doctors were awarded an average 22 per cent pay rise over two years, while nurses received 10.8 per cent in the same period.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We invested an extra £26bn to fix the broken health and care system we inherited, and through our Plan for Change, are determined to tackle inefficiencies and drive-up productivity in the NHS.

“We have underlined the need for trusts to cut bureaucracy to invest even further in the front line, so we can support hard-working staff and deliver a better service for patients and taxpayers’ money.”