Health Secretary Steven Barclay has warned NHS workers they risk losing any future accolades and hand-claps of appreciation unless they end their pay dispute and get back to work immediately.
NHS staff should concentrate on saving people's lives and not waste their time standing on picket lines in the hope that government ministers might be listening to their unfair demands.
Barclay also warned front line staff that the Government was considering taking back all the hand-claps and saucepan bangs they received during lockdown.
‘Tens of thousands of ambulance workers, call handlers, paramedics, nurses and doctors could all be stripped of those hard won hand-claps,’ sneered a Department of Health spokes-Scrooge. ‘All that banging on saucepans, Boris standing on the doorstep of Number 10 beating his wok, showering workers with thanks for saving the nation …it will all have been for nothing. And what do they hope to gain from strike action? A few extra pounds in their pay-packets? Shorter working hours? Investment in the NHS? Reduced waiting times at A&E? Are they really prepared to lose all those wonderful hand-claps just for that? Christmas might well be the time for giving, but nurses will get nothing from us'.