The health secretary, Alan Milburn, today rebutted claims that the announcement of a pay and reform package for NHS staff was designed to put pressure on the striking firefighters.
The deal paves the way for a phased 16% pay increase for 1.2 million low paid health service workers but is closely linked to modernisation of their working practices.
Unison, the largest public services union, claimed that government officials had hastened negotiations on the deal over the past week in a bid to put pressure on the Fire Brigade Union (FBU).
Mr Milburn insisted that the timing of yesterday's announcement was coincidental, although the government has consistently argued that such reform is the key to resolving the fire dispute.
"This deal for the NHS isn't anything to do with firefighters, and everything to do with getting a fairer more modern system of pay for a million NHS staff," he told the BBC.
"Indeed, it is the NHS trade unions who have been urging us to get on and conclude a deal so that we can get this new pay system in. We are going to be doing that."
But Mr Milburn said the pay reform programme, Agenda for Change, did have lessons for everyone in the public sector.
"If people want to draw broader lessons from this, basically there are two. First of all, the lesson is that negotiation works," he said.
"And the second conclusion to reach, and I think this has to apply not just in one part of the public services but across the whole of the public sector, is that extra pay really does have to come in exchange for modernisation."
But Unison said it remained sceptical of the government's motives and warned it would not ballot its members on the NHS deal until the fire strike was concluded.
Karen Jennings, head of health for the union, said: "We believe that there is a deliberate attempt to confuse what's going on in the NHS discussions with the FBU.
"I think they are using the NHS as an example of what they call pay modernisation and, of course, they are two separate issues.
"The modernisation that the government wants from the FBU involves a cutback in staff and so on. That has got nothing to do with what is happening in the NHS."
If accepted, the pay reform programme will be implemented in 12 trial areas next April and throughout Britain in October 2004.
