A senior Tory MP has said the government must improve its pay offer to nurses to end strikes hitting the NHS.
It comes as 70,000 appointments have been lost and surgeries have been postponed for up to six weeks as NHS workers walked out today.
Jake Berry said: “We need to find a way as a government, and the union does too, to get to that centre point, that point of agreement straight away.” He also told Talk TV that the government’s current offer is “too low”.
Several health services have been impacted by the strikes as health minister Maria Caulfield told Sky News: “Cancer surgeries are going to be closed in those 44 trusts in England”.
Meanwhile professor Tim Orchard, chief executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, added that some surgery would have to be postponed for as long as six weeks.
Penny Mordaunt said the government understands the “incredible” job the NHS does, but said it has to “control inflation” and ensure pay rises in the public sector are “affordable”.
