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Labour would not support NHS staff withdrawing emergency and cancer care – Thangam Debbonaire

Nurses are set to go on strike again at the end of the month having rejected the government’s pay offer.

This time, however, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) says it will not provide cover for emergency care and cancer treatment, which were staffed during recent strikes.

Asked about the NHS strikes, Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire says she understands why NHS staff feel “fed up and pushed to the edge”.

“Before Christmas when industrial action was in the wings, the head of the RCN, Pat Cullen, said to the government that she would negotiate anywhere, anytime, including Christmas Day.”

Rishi Sunak and Steve Barclay “failed to do anything about it”, she says.

“There’s always room for further negotiation, and I really think at this late stage, Rishi Sunak needs to come down and sort this out.

“That would be a responsible leader, that would be what Wes Streeting as health secretary would do, it’s what Keir Starmer would do.

“We would also not have been in this position in the first place,” she says, noting that there were no NHS strikes under the last Labour government.

“That is because we kept talking to the workforce. This is on the Tory government, that’s their failure to talk to the nursing unions in advance to try to prevent industrial action.”

She says Mr Streeting would have met with NHS staff months ago not just to address pay, but also conditions.

Labour’s solution would be to invest in the NHS workforce to expand it, she adds.

Asked about the withdrawal of key NHS services in the upcoming strikes, Ms Debbonaire says: “We wouldn’t support withdrawing cancer care and emergency care, and I don’t think nurses and doctors want to do that.

“I think that this is why it’s on Rishi Sunak to get down and sort this out.”