A union chief reportedly missed critical ambulance strike talks because he was on holiday. Officials in Government had expected Unite’s National Officer for Health Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe to attend a meeting on Tuesday with Health Secretary Steve Barclay.
But he was absent despite the date of the strike being known for weeks, according to The Sun.
In his place, Unite sent trade union official Onay Kasab who at a rally in November vowed action would be taken to win a “workers’ economy”.
A Tory source told the same publication: “Union officials claim to be concerned about patient safety but seem to be more interested in waging political battles and furthering industrial strife by any means necessary.”
A Unite spokesperson told Express.co.uk when approached about the claims: “This is an intrusion on the private lives of two of our full-time officers and it would be entirely inappropriate to comment on these matters.
“This attack on Unite’s officers appears to be a clear case of political dirty tricks aimed at deflecting from the key issue of the crisis facing the NHS.”
The Telegraph has reported that a source close to Mr Barclay, who was criticised by unions for suggesting striking health workers had “made a conscious choice to inflict harm on patients”, revealed he is keen to “speed up the process” to give NHS staff a pay rise early next year to break the deadlock.
Unions have said they expect NHS workers to be offered a two percent increase next year, based on a letter sent by Mr Barclay last month to the NHS Pay Review Body.
At least 11,509 staff were absent from work across England during strikes by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) on Tuesday. A total of 13,797 appointments and procedures had to be rescheduled, according to NHS England.
Thousands of ambulance workers took industrial action on Wednesday with Armed Forces personnel stepping in to take their place. Trusts told patients to only call 999 in the case of a life-threatening emergency.
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The next ambulance strike is due to take place on December 28.
Workers across a number of other industries are also set to strike in the run up to Christmas.
On Thursday, strikes will be held by Unite members working for Highlands and Islands Airports, National Highways workers in London and the South East, and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) in the North West, Yorkshire and Humber and North Wales.
Unison workers at the Environment Agency will refuse to provide on-call cover for unexpected incidents and Rural Payments Agency staff will continue their walkout.
National Highways and DVSA strikes are due to continue on Friday while Royal Mail workers will begin a two-day national stoppage.
Christmas Eve will bring strikes from RMT railway workers from 6pm and from London bus workers at Abellio.
Junior minister Mark Spencer has appealed to striking workers to “come off the picket line, to come back to work”.
Appearing on Times Radio the morning after the ambulance workers’s strikes, the Tory MP refused to speculate about how the pay review process might operate in the coming year.
He stressed it was not just public-sector workers who are “under pressure”.
The Food, Farming and Fisheries Minister told the broadcaster: “I think the answer first of all is to come off the picket line, to get back to work.
“The pay review body is an annual process, of course that will happen again as we move into next year, but we need to accept this year, and then of course next year’s pay review body will take into account the inflation that we’ve seen over the last 12 months which is squeezing everybody, not just those who are working in the public sector.
“As a society, we’ve got to try and find a way through this together. We’ve got to try and balance the burden of this challenge across the whole of society.”
