Leader of the Labour party, Keir Starmer, has been told by Nursing union leaders that there will need to be a change in culture in the NHS if his plan to cut waiting lists is to work. In recent days, the Labour leader has said he would incentivise overtime more in a bid to bring soaring waiting lists down.
Bringing down waiting lists
Starmer says that he would spend £1.1bn a year to cover these higher overtime payments and that his party has spoken to staff organisations who confirmed that they would get behind the plan. Speaking to the BBC earlier this week, the Labour leader said:
“They are up for this because they know that bringing down waiting lists will relieve pressure on them in the long run. You don’t even need to change contracts because we will be paying them proper rates out of hours.”
According to Starmer, this funding (which would come via the crapping of non-dom tax status), would enable the NHS to provide two million extra operations, scans and appointments in the first year of a Labour government.
However, today, union leaders have warned him that a culture change within the NHS is necessary if the plan is to work. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have said that thousands of NHS workers already work overtime “that is never paid”.
Weekend work
This morning, the RCN released a statement relating to Starmer’s plans, expressing concerns about them and whether this would be a long-term strategy or not. It read:
“As part of their shift patterns, weekend work is routine for many. Any Labour government would likely take office at a time of record unfilled nurse jobs, in excess of 40,000, and so the long-term answer is of course to have more staff overall.
“When many nurses already work additional full days to make ends meet financially, extra capacity is urgently required. Nursing staff must feel valued by fair pay and treatment – there is no other way to boost staffing levels and give patients the treatment they deserve.”
RCN aren’t the only union to have spoken out about the overtime plan, either. Christina McAnea, the General Secretary echoed the thoughts of RCN, stating that this should only ever be considered if it’s a “stop-gap measure.” She added:
“Health workers are already up against it and there are only so many hours in a day. But a voluntary scheme, where staff are paid fairly, that avoids the use of expensive agencies, makes sense in the short-term.”
Meanwhile, The British Medical Association said:
“Paying doctors properly for overtime is not only the right thing to do but would be more cost-effective than using the private sector or making extracontractual payments.
“While this move may very well incentivise further overtime, it is only once doctors receive restoration of lost relative value, will we be in a position to look at the impact that this extra overtime funding may have on waiting lists.”
How the plan would work
When setting out the plans over the weekend, Starmer was keen to stress that nobody within the NHS would be forced to work overtime. Instead, he said that the system would work for those who wanted to work overtime and get paid properly for it. Elaborating on the plan, he said:
“The two reassurances I can offer is firstly, this is not compulsion. This is voluntary. Staff will be given the choice to opt in.
“The second reassurance is that the reason we’ve adopted this approach is because it’s an approach that has already been shown to be working in some London hospitals.
“It’s a credible plan, it’s workable. It will create two million more appointments a year and that will be game-changing in terms of getting waiting lists down and busting the Tory backlog.”
Final thought
While Keir Starmer’s plan to tackle waiting lists by incentivising overtime may seem like a promising solution, the prospect of this being the “long-term solution” for waiting lists understandably concerns unions.
The fact that thousands of NHS workers already work unpaid overtime highlights deeper issues of understaffing and undervaluation. While paying staff fairly for overtime would be a step in the right direction, it’s crucial to address the underlying problems of staff shortages and burnout.
Starmer’s plan may provide a short-term fix, but a more comprehensive approach is needed to ensure the long-term sustainability of the NHS. It remains to be seen whether he will elaborate on these plans further at this week’s Labour Party conference.
