Nurses will also strike on Tuesday, while ambulance staff will walk out on Friday and physiotherapists on Thursday
\n LONDON
\nHealth workers in Britain began their largest strike on Monday, as tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance workers walk out in an escalating pay dispute, putting further strain on the state-run National Health Service (NHS).
\nNurses and ambulance workers have been striking separately on and off since late last year but Monday\u2019s walkout involving both, largely in England, is the biggest in the 75-year history of the NHS.
\nNurses will also strike on Tuesday, while ambulance staff will walk out on Friday and physiotherapists on Thursday, making the week probably the most disruptive in NHS history, its Medical Director Stephen Powis said.
\nHealth workers are demanding a pay rise that reflects the worst inflation in Britain in four decades, while the government says that would be unaffordable and cause more price rises, and in turn, make interest rates and mortgage payments rise.
\nAround 500,000 workers, many from the public sector, have been staging strikes since last summer, adding to pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to resolve the disputes and limit disruption to public services such as railways and schools.
\nThe Royal College of Nursing (RCN) trade union wrote to Sunak over the weekend asking him to bring the nursing strike \u201cto a swift close\u201d by making \u201cmeaningful\u201d pay offers.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got one of the busiest winters we have ever had with record levels of funding going into the NHS to try and manage services,\u201d Maria Caulfield, the minister for mental health and women\u2019s health strategy, told Sky News on Monday.
\nThe government has urged people to continue to access emergency services and attend appointments during the strikes unless they had been cancelled but said patients would face disruption and delays. The NHS, a source of pride for most Britons, is under extreme pressure with millions of patients on waiting lists for operations and thousands each month failing to receive prompt emergency care.
\nThe RCN says a decade of poor pay has contributed to tens of thousands of nurses leaving the profession – 25,000 over just the last year – with the severe staffing shortages impacting patient care.
\nThe RCN initially asked for a pay rise of 5% above inflation and has since said it could meet the government \u201chalf way\u201d, but both sides have failed to reach agreement despite weeks of talks.
\nMeanwhile, thousands of ambulance workers represented by the GMB and Unite trade unions are set to strike on Monday in their own pay dispute. Both unions have announced several more days of industrial action.
\nNot all ambulance workers will strike at once and emergency calls will be attended to. In Wales, nurses and some ambulance workers have called off strikes planned for Monday as they review pay offers from the Welsh government.
\nSunak said in a TalkTV interview last week he would \u201clove to give the nurses a massive pay rise\u201d but said the government faced tough choices and that it was funding the NHS in other areas such as by providing medical equipment and ambulances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nurses will also strike on Tuesday, while ambulance staff will walk out on Friday and physiotherapists on Thursday LONDON Health workers in Britain began their largest strike on Monday, as tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance workers walk out in an escalating pay dispute, putting further strain on the state-run National Health Service (NHS). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-312203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n