Unions are warning of more NHS strikes amid fears ministers will impose an “actual pay cut”.

Health unions have reacted angrily to the prospect that the Government could seek to impose another below-inflation pay rise on NHS workers next year.

The Guardian reported that unions and the NHS Confederation are concerned that Health Secretary Steve Barclay will seek to limit the increase in staffing levels other than doctors and dentists to just 2% next year.

Although Mr Barclay didn’t provide a figure when he wrote to the Salaries Verification Body last month, they believe that’s the amount he wants because the NHS budget has been set for 2023-24.

The paper said with a potential further 1% chance, that could add up to 3% – although that would likely still spark further unrest within the service.

Unions are already embroiled in a bitter row over this year’s award, which has seen nurses and ambulance workers strike, with more due this month.

Unions and the NHS federation fear Health Secretary Steve Barclay (pictured) will seek to limit the increase in staffing other than doctors and dentists to just 2% next year.

Unions are already embroiled in a bitter row over this year’s award, which has seen nurses and ambulance workers strike, with more due this month.

Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), warned of a further cut in real terms and said ministers should focus on solving this year’s claim.

“Our dispute concerns the NHS pay premium for 2022-23 and we are deciding how to engage in discussions about the 2023-24 premium,” she told the Guardian.

“Ministers need to resolve our dispute with them over this year’s award before moving on to the next.

“Inflicting a decade of real pay cuts on nursing should be more than enough without thinking about going down that path again next year.”

A GMB union official told the newspaper: ‘The Department (Health and Social Care) has already sent its mandate to the Pay Review Board for next year, proposing a pay rise of 2.1%.

“This is about a third of the projected inflation in 2023. The fundamental problem with the dispute is that NHS payrolls have been consistently under-performing.”

Pat Cullen, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), warned of a further cut in real terms and said ministers should focus on solving this year’s claim

In response, a Department for Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The Government values ​​and values ​​NHS staff very much and we are committed to giving NHS staff a pay raise and asking the independent paycheck bodies to make recommendations on pay of the employees concerned.

“This follows the full adoption of last year’s recommendations, which saw low earners in the NHS get a 9.3% pay rise.

“We will carefully review the reports from the independent pays verifiers as soon as we receive them. The government has not yet set the position on affordability for 2023/24.’

The extent of the extraordinary New Year’s challenges facing Rishi Sunak was revealed tonight.

The first was the shattering revelation by the nation’s top ER doctor that up to 500 patients die each week due to delays in emergency departments.

In a second blow, official figures showed that a record 45,756 migrants crossed the Channel last year, despite enormous efforts by ministers to stop people smuggling.

Finally, unions are preparing to bring the railways to a standstill again this week ahead of renewed strikes by nurses and ambulance workers in a worsening winter of discontent.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in his no-nonsense New Year’s message, admitted that 2022 had been “tough” because of the cost of living crisis, adding: “Yes, 2023 will have its challenges, but the government I lead puts your priorities first. “

Mr Sunak’s first task will be to get the NHS through the winter crisis (pictured: ambulance workers gather outside Kenton Ambulance Station during a strike over wages and working conditions)

Mr Sunak admitted in his stark New Year’s message that 2022 had been “tough” because of the cost of living crisis.

However, he insisted: “Yes, 2023 will have its challenges, but the government I lead puts your priorities first.” On other developments:

• One in six people had to become a “home improvement doctor” after failing to get an appointment with their GP, shocking figures today show;
• dr Tim Cooksley, President of the Society for Acute Medicine, said the government should declare a national NHS major incident to bail out the health system.
• Railway workers who joined the latest strike over pay this week have taken home more than £150million in taxpayer-funded bonuses in recent years.
• The prime minister’s plan for “tough new legislation” to crack down on strikes is feared to go unimplemented for at least six months.

It was revealed yesterday that an A&E patient was forced to wait “99 hours” before being given a bed last week, and parents have told how their ailing children have been forced to sleep in chairs as the NHS made them illegal Winter is facing a deepening crisis.

Some patients had to lie on the floor due to a lack of beds in the busy emergency room

A huge line of ambulances is seen outside Aintree Hospital as patients wait for beds due to mass overcrowding

The unnamed patient was taken to Swindon’s Great Western Hospital by ambulance last week but had to wait on a stretcher for four days while staff desperately tried to find an available bed.

A clinician at Great Western Hospital told the Sunday Times: “We’re broken and nobody’s listening,” while Jon Westbrook, the hospital’s chief medical officer, wrote in a leaked email to staff: “We’re seeing case numbers and [sickness] that we have not seen in our clinical career.’

Meanwhile in Oxford, in the children’s emergency department at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, a three-year-old girl was seen curled up in a plastic chair trying to sleep after waiting hours for treatment.

Sharing the picture on social media, the girl’s father Tom Hook wrote: “Exhausted, dehydrated and battling multiple illnesses this is the best thing the NHS could do five hours after arriving at A&E and 22 Hours after we called for help.

“The staff have been fantastic throughout and clearly have been doing an almost impossible job in a broken system that just feeds everything to A&E – which then can’t handle the demand.”

MailOnline has reached out to Great Western Hospital for comment.