Keir Starmer demanded to know “what is the point” of Rishi Sunak as the pair clashed over the wave of strikes across the country.
The Labour leader accused the prime minister of failing to step in to stop tomorrow’s walkout by nurses.
Nursing union leaders had offered to call off the action - their first in more than 100 years - if the government agreed to hold fresh pay talks.
But health secretary Steve Barclay refused, meaning the industrial action will go ahead as planned.
The strike is one of a series of walkouts taking place over the next few weeks by postal staff, rail workers, Border Force officials and firefighters.
At prime minister’s questions, Starmer said the nurses’ strikes were a “badge of shame” for the government.
He said: “Instead of showing leadership, he is playing games with people’s health and there is a human cost.
“After 12 years of Tory failure, winter has arrived for our public services, and we’ve got a prime minister who has curled up in a ball and gone into hibernation.
“If he can’t act on behalf of patients or nurses, or everyone who wants these strikes called off, then surely the whole country’s entitled to ask what is the point of him and what is the point of the government he is supposed to be leading?”
But Sunak said the strikes were “Labour’s nightmare before Christmas” because the party relied on unions for funding.
He said: “We are actually listening to the independent pay review body, they want to undermine them. We have offered a fair pay deal, they cannot even decide on a number among themselves.
“We are actually protecting the public, they are protecting their paymasters.”
