Nurses went on strike for a second day today (Tuesday, December 20) as dozens joined the picket lines outside hospitals across Bristol. At Southmead, South Bristol and at the various sites around the Bristol Royal Infirmary, members of the Royal College of Nursing came out and picketed as part of their ongoing dispute with the Government over staffing levels and pay.
Outside the BRI and the Children’s Hospital, drivers passing along Upper Maudlin Street kept up an almost constant stream of beeps in support, as nurses spoke of their sadness at having to strike for the first time in their careers. One nurse, who was leading the picket line outside the BRI as the picket supervisor, said he had been a nurse for 35 years and this was the first time he was out on strike.
He said the union and hospital bosses had made sure there were safe staffing levels inside the hospital. “Our number one priority is patient safety, that’s one of the reasons why we’re striking at the moment. We have something called derogation, which means that there’s safe staffing for the wards so we can continue the service as best we can,” he said.
Read next: Updates as nurses go on strike across Bristol for second day of industrial action
“I’ve been an NHS nurse for 35 years, and it’s the first time I’ve been on strike. I don’t want to strike. We’re not getting any pay when we’re on strike. We can barely make ends meet anyway. I don’t want to be here, but I’m here. I’ve got a job to do today, so that’s what we’re doing. We just want the Government to negotiate with us, stop the little taglines of ‘19 per cent is too expensive’, and negotiate with us and end this nonsense.
“What I would say to health secretary Steve Barclay is that I’m an emergency department nurse, come and spend a shift with me, not a high level nurse, just a bog standard nurse, come with me and work a shift and if you spent time in the back of an ambulance with me and see what it’s really like.
“The public support is excellent. The RCN [Royal College of Nursing] has had £100,000 donated by the public since the strike started. We have a lot of public support and the Government should not underestimate that,” he added.
Another nurse of many years who was striking for the first time was Hannah, who worked inside at the BRI. “We have many different reasons and it’s not an easy decision,” she said. “We’ve all had to soul-search to decide what to do today. We didn’t want to leave any area short-staffed, and we haven’t - we’ve really prioritised patient safety today, but for us it was really to stand with our colleagues and just support each other.
“We have colleagues who can’t afford to buy Christmas presents, and some who are going to foodbanks, and that’s not ok for an educated profession, so that’s why it was important today to come,” she said.
Today’s action is the second day of walkouts - staff with the RCN went on strike for the first time last Thursday, but with shift patterns, today was the first actual strike day for many. The nurses across Bristol joined around 10,000 of their colleagues across England, Wales and Northern Ireland on strike today, and there is more industrial action within the NHS planned this week.
On Wednesday, ambulance staff in England and Wales will walk out too, unless a meeting on Tuesday afternoon with the health secretary can avert it at the eleventh hour.
READ MORE:
- Tens of thousands of NHS nurses go on strike
- Nurses broke picket line outside of Bristol hospital to help injured man
- Hundreds of NHS vacancies in Bristol as record numbers of staff leave the sector
Get the best stories about the things you love most curated by us and delivered to your inbox every day. Choose what you love here.
