Midwives’ leader Cathy Warwick rounded on Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday for forcing an NHS strike that is “entirely of the government’s making.”

In a fierce attack on the Tory-led coalition at the Royal College of Midwives annual conference, she branded a pay freeze imposed on workers a “political decision rather than an economic one.”

RCM members went on strike last month for the first time in the college’s 133-year history to join hundreds of thousands of other furious NHS workers.

Ms Warwick said ministers’ claim that a 1 per cent rise was “unaffordable” was merely a matter of priorities.

“If there is not enough money for the NHS, that is because the government has decided to limit its budget and to spend our money elsewhere,” she said.

“In other words it is a political decision rather than an economic one.”

A 1 per cent rise was proposed by the NHS pay review body but rejected by ministers who instead imposed a freeze for most front-line workers.

Those at the top of their pay scales will receive a one-off 1 per cent payment, which does not contribute towards pensions.

Ms Warwick argued that the cost of the rise, £300 million according to the government, is far less than the £3 billion that the government wasted on a costly and unnecessary  reorganisation of the NHS and less too than the estimated £1.5 billion that NHS staff in England have donated to the NHS via unpaid overtime.