Unison’s general secretary called out the “broken” NHS funding review body and backed striking workers as part of a barnstorming welcome speech on the opening day of its annual health conference.
Speaking at the 2026 National Health Care Service Group Conference on Monday, Andrea Egan issued a call for international solidarity with racialised, LGBTQ+ and disabled colleagues, migrant workers and Palestinians under siege in Gaza.
Beyond this, she also warned the Labour government that “futile attempts to imitate the far-right must end”.
“There will be no out-Reforming of Reform,” Egan added.
Unison boss to NHS: ‘The whole country depends on you’
Beginning her welcome, Egan distinguished herself from some of her (*cough* more right-wing) predecessors as the “first lay member” to lead Unison. However, she quickly moved on to one of the event’s top priorities: NHS pay.
No politician denies that the whole country depends on you. That everyone turns to health workers in our moments of need. That the NHS turns on endless hours of self-sacrifice.
Yet your terms and conditions are still under attack.
Staff are our health service. To invest in you is to invest in the NHS. The notion we can restore our healthcare system without restoring your pay is nonsense. That’s why we have been unequivocal with the government: 3.3% is simply not good enough.
Egan blamed the “broken” Pay Review Body for the “insulting” 3.3% offer to NHS workers. Unison has already called out the offer as a real-terms pay cut that fails to keep up with the cost of living.
The general secretary added:
A united message to the government from Unison’s health conference should be: start treating NHS staff with the respect they deserve. And that means restoring pay. It means investing in workforce expansion. And it means picking morale up off the floor.
Do I smell a dig at Labour’s actively anti-union, pro-privatisation excuse for a healthcare secretary? Why, I think I do!
Egan slams Labour’s lack of progression
On that note, Egan also got in a swipe at the “no-longer new” Labour Party more generally.
Notably, Labour expelled Egan from the party back in 2022 for sharing ‘Socialist Appeal’ posts. As such, her palpable disappointment is more than understandable.
With Labour in power we hoped for a break with the failed ideas of the past. We were promised ‘the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation’ for public services…Well, where is it?
There are still far too many private healthcare vultures swooping down on our services, profiteering, extracting value – not delivering for patients or the public. Allowing that to continue is a political choice. A deeply irrational one at that.
Unison’s research has shown that, over the next few years, over 20,000 NHS jobs are under threat across England. The antidote to this peril, according to Egan, is proper public funding:
Our NHS can only be rebuilt on the foundation stone of its socialist-first principles, not by harking back to the failed, corrupt schemes of the mid-2000s.
How many more crumbling buildings and patients in corridors do we need to see before politicians stop spreading myths about inefficiencies and start getting serious about investment?
And, in light of those socialist-first principles, she also praised the health workers who’ve recently staged strikes. Egan acknowledged that industrial action isn’t taken “easily or lightly” when workers are “deeply committed” to their patients.
Anyone seeing another jab at Streeting or is it just me?
‘Stop the attacks on migrant workers’
Egan then pivoted to another conference priority: the rights of migrant workers. She urged members to get involved in the union’s fair visa campaign day of action on 24 April, and added:
I have taken our Unison message to Parliament, and directly to the Prime Minister in 10 Downing Street: stop the attacks on migrant workers. Now.
Our pressure, which began with migrant members organising a massive lobby of Parliament themselves late last year, is working. More and more MPs are realising what catastrophic damage the Home Office proposals would do to our public services and are speaking out against them.
As part and parcel of standing up for migrant workers, Unison is actively opposing Reform UK, such as through the Responding to Reform network.
Egan said:
Reform want to take away our rights, turn back the clock on equality, and parcel up our public services for their old pals in the square mile. We in Unison will not let it happen.
And, quite rightly, that includes the Farage-alike clowns in Labour:
We are also making clear to this Labour government that futile attempts to imitate the far-right must end. There will be no out-Reforming of Reform.
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
‘I came to transform it’
Egan reiterated Unison’s opposition to the US-Israeli war on Iran. Thus far, the illegal war has targeted at least 23 healthcare facilities in a matter of weeks.
Then she gave a shout out to the campaign of solidarity with Ukrainian healthcare workers, before moving to Palestine.
I want to acknowledge the Palestinian healthcare workers, almost two thousand of whom have been killed in Israel’s genocide. Medical Aid for Palestinians estimated last year that three healthcare workers were being murdered by Israel in Gaza every single day.
Finally, Egan ended with a note of solidarity and hope for change.
I did not come into this role to maintain the status quo; I came to transform it. I came into this role on a vote to be your voice. But comrades, I cannot do this alone. So today I ask you one question: are you ready to be part of the change and to be part of this journey?
The union is me, the union is you, the union is us. Together we can build a union that truly reflects the strength, resilience and leadership of our movement, a union that fights hard for justice and a union that wins.
I know we at the Canary have a (sometimes well-deserved) reputation as jaded cynics, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound like we might have a principled socialist at the head of the UK’s largest union again.
Featured image via Unison
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