Paying nurses more would take money away from funding NHS operations, the Health Secretary has said, as ministers meet to discuss contingency plans for forthcoming strikes.

Steve Barclay insisted it was down to the independent pay review body to set rates of pay as Royal College of Nursing (RCN) chief executive Pat Cullen said the Government’s door was “firmly shut” to talks.

Mr Barclay has now invited the RCN for a meeting, it is understood, with the Prime Minister’s spokesman also telling reporters: “I think he’s been clear that he’s always willing to meet with the Royal College of Nursing.”

Pressed on whether he is willing to talk to the union about pay, the official said: “The position on pay has not changed – that’s rightly for an independent review body to decide.”

An RCN spokesman said: “We have replied positively to his email and we will attend in the hope the Government is now serious about negotiating.”

A wave of strikes by nurses, paramedics, rail workers and Border Force staff this month is expected to cause mass disruption, with thousands of NHS operations and appointments cancelled.

The military and civil servants are likely to be brought in to cover Border Force staff, while armed forces will also be deployed to hospital trusts ahead of an ambulance worker strike on December 21.

A meeting of Cobra – the Government’s emergency response committee – will be held on Monday afternoon.

Asked on BBC Breakfast if it was time for him to sit down with the RCN and “talk money”, Mr Barclay said: “We have engaged with them and we continue to be willing to do so.”

He said nurses have spoken to him about a range of challenges in the NHS such as technology, working conditions and security, “but we do have an independent pay review body and it’s important both sides respect that independent body; it includes trade union representation on it. That’s what we’ve done.”

He said seven million people are currently waiting for an operation and “it’s important we prioritise our funding to patients to clear those operation backlogs”.

He added: “I don’t want to be taking money away from clearing the backlog, which is what we would have to do – we’d have to take money away from patients waiting for operations to then fund additional pay.

“And if everyone in the public sector were to get an increase in line with inflation, that would be costing £28 billion at a time when the Government has to get inflation under control, because that is the biggest factor in terms of people’s cost of living.”

The RCN has said nurses could suspend planned strikes if the Government agrees to talks on pay.

Patricia Marquis, England director of the RCN, told Times Radio the Government needs to make “a serious commitment to coming to talk about pay and safe staffing and not talking about peripheral issues, which are important, but are not going to solve this dispute.”

Earlier, Ms Cullen told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “The door is firmly shut on myself and the 320,000 nurses who participated in this ballot for strike action.”

She said the RCN would be willing to meet with the Government through Acas if it does not want to speak to her directly.

She added: “Our door is absolutely wide open and it appears at the minute that theirs is totally shut.”

She said if the Cabinet minister “gets round a table with us and has realistic, honest talks, there’s a strong possibility that I will be able to go back to my council and say ‘I recommend that we avert the strikes and continue those negotiations’.

“And I would also say the council would most certainly not be unreasonable about that.”

Asked if she is prepared to consider a pay offer that is lower than the RCN has asked the Government for, she said: “It would not be for me to negotiate on the airwaves, I’m definitely not going to do that.

“That’s for myself and the Health Secretary, or through conciliation with Acas to get around a table, but we will not be found wanting in getting in there and having those discussions.”

There are currently 7.2 million people on the NHS waiting list for planned treatment.

The total waiting list was steadily increasing before the Covid pandemic, from 2.5 million in April 2012 to 4.6 million in February 2020.

Earlier, senior Tory MP Steve Brine told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Mr Barclay should meet with nursing leaders.

“I started by saying it was 1-0 to the RCN with the move they made yesterday.

“I would suggest that the Secretary of State could get to 1-1 by inviting them in, and actually I’m not sure that he’s got an awful lot to lose.

“You know, jaw-jaw better than war-war, and at the moment we’re in a media war-war and the patients, the public who pay for this service are just sort of left bemused in the middle.”