'Darkest day' for nurses as strike action cut short by High Court ruling

A planned nurses' strike on May 2 would be unlawful, the High Court has ruled, after Health Secretary Steve Barclay pursued legal action against the Royal College of Nursing.

The government took the RCN to court over its next planned 48-hour walkout, claiming its end date of May 2 extended beyond the union's six-month mandate for strike action.

Mr Barclay said he was "regretfully" taking the RCN to the High Court, but had been "left with no choice" after attempts to resolve the situation had failed.

The RCN has called off its strike action on Tuesday May 2, but the union's general secretary Pat Cullen described Thursday's court hearing as the "darkest day" of the dispute so far.

Earlier this month, members of the UK's biggest nursing union announced plans for their latest strike after they voted to reject the latest 5% pay offer from ministers.

The walkout is set to include nurses from intensive care, emergency and cancer units, and was originally planned to take place over the bank holiday weekend from 8pm on Sunday, April 30, until 8pm on Tuesday, May 2.

Nurses will now walkout on Sunday evening and finish just before midnight on Monday.

Mr Barclay applied to the High Court after NHS Employers asked him to check the legality of the action. He insisted he "firmly" supports the right to take industrial action, but "the Government cannot stand by and let a plainly unlawful strike action go ahead nor ignore the request of NHS Employers."

Responding to the outcome of the hearing on Thursday, a Department of Health spokesperson said: “We welcome the decision of the High Court that the Royal College of Nursing’s planned strike on 2 May is illegal. “The government wants to continue working constructively with the Royal College of Nursing, as was the case when we agreed the pay offer that was endorsed by their leadership.

"We now call on them to do the right thing by patients and agree derogations for their strike action on 30 May and 1 April.”

Ms Cullen previously vowed to "stand up" to government "bullies" in court, while confirming members would not be made to strike on May 2 if the court ruled it unlawful.

Speaking outside the High Court in London on Thursday, Ms Cullen said: "Steve Barclay may get a legal win today, but what he has done is lost the public, and he has certainly lost nursing."

She told broadcasters: "(Nurses) will continue to fight for the NHS, fight for patients, particularly those 7.3 million people that are sitting in waiting lists.

"That's where his concentration should be today, not on this courtroom.

"Every day that we have taken strike action we've said we're sorry. We're sorry for those 7.2 million people-plus that are sitting on waiting lists.

"We're sorry that we haven't been able to fill the tens of thousands of vacant posts by getting this Government into a room and negotiating properly and decently for nursing.

"That's what our aim is, to address those waiting list to make sure people get a decent NHS in this country and they just continue to crumble under this Government."

'He has certainly lost nursing', says RCN general secretary Pat Cullen outside the High Court in London

Ms Cullen also urged ministers to resume pay negotiations after 54% of voting RCN members rejected the latest pay offer, accusing ministers of treating nurses like "criminals" by "dragging them through the courts".

"They've taken the most trusted profession through the courts, by the least trusted people," Ms Cullen said.

"And what a day for nursing. What a day for patients. And what an indictment on this government to do this to the very people that have held this NHS together, not just through the pandemic, but an NHS that has been run into the ground and in crisis, caused by this government."

She also criticised the Health Secretary and the Government for clapping for nurses only to leave the NHS to "crumble".

News of the fresh walkouts over the first May bank holiday sparked further concerns about the potential impact on patients, and the ability of the NHS to tackle the record backlog.

Policy director of the NHS Confederation Layla McCay told ITV News that strike action is "obviously incredibly disruptive" for the NHS.

"Whenever a staff group decides to go on strike, obviously that's not a decision they would make lightly because they know that the impact on patients is going to be significant," she said.

When junior doctors stages a four-day strike earlier this month, nearly 200,000 hospital appointments and operations had to be re-scheduled, according to NHS figures.

The Chief Executive of NHS Providers, Julian Hartley, warned the NHS will continue to suffer if the strikes continue.

Mr Hartley said the "overall impact" of industrial action will be hard to judge immediately, but it will have a "significant impact" on the ability of the NHS to "eat into" the record backlog if walkouts continue much longer.

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