Nurses have asked the British public to “please bear with us” as they strike to help boost staff numbers for safe care.
The Royal College of Nursing chief has penned an open letter to Mirror readers insisting “your support means everything”.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay on Thursday said that a meeting with the RCN - which reportedly discussed working conditions but not pay - was “constructive”.
The Government reportedly plans to draft in the Army when the first nationwide nursing strike hits the NHS “within weeks”.
Writing for the Mirror, RCN General Secretary Pat Cullen said: “Ministers must look in the mirror and ask how long they will put nursing staff and the public through this.
“They pushed us to strike and only they can pull us back out. Ministers, my door is wide open. But don’t come knocking until you’re ready to do the right thing.”
Former hospital and mental health nurse Ms Cullen is also the former Nursing Officer at the Department of Health and Social Care.
Ms Cullen stayed tight-lipped when asked by reporters outside the Department of Health building in Whitehall yesterday(thur) how the talks had gone.
The RCN tweeted that it was “a cordial introduction that covered many important, broad topics”.
It added: “We await a future meeting to address the specifics of our dispute and the reality that our members have voted to strike.”
The mass walkout affects half of NHS trusts and services in England and all but one in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Those not striking did not reach the 50% minimum voter participation threshold.
Nine in 10 nurses who voted in the UK-wide ballot opted for strike action.
Other health worker unions including Unison and the GMB will announce the result of strike ballots before the end of the month among staff including ambulance drivers and paramedics, hospital porters and cleaners.
Physiotherapists started voting on Monday over industrial action, while a ballot of midwives opens on Friday.
The unions are protesting over a pay award earlier this year of £1,400 for most NHS workers, with the RCN calling for a rise of 5% above the rate of inflation.
Nursing union leader Pat Cullen's letter to Mirror readers in full
Rishi Sunak can’t say he wasn’t warned. Mrs Poole told him, from her hospital bed two weeks ago, to do better by the nurses.
She spoke for the country. And now hundreds of thousands of nursing staff have said the same.
After years of accepting how this government treats us – and how it cares too little for the people in our care – we’ve said enough is enough.
Our anger has just become action. The majority of the NHS will now see strikes by nursing staff, starting within weeks, if the government fails to do the right thing.
Mirror readers, your support means everything and please bear with us.
We are taking this action for you – everybody who relies on a nurse or health care support worker in any corner of the UK. You have been short-changed for years.
I was asked today: ‘what about the people who will have their operations cancelled when you’re on strike?’. The toughest question.
But I don’t think the person asking realised that every single day hundreds of operations are cancelled because there aren’t enough nurses.
When nurses feel they have no choice but to quit, it is patients and people who pay a price. You deserve safely staffed services and we deserve to work in them – that’s the kind of care we came into nursing to give.
And why should a nurse now work a day each week for free? That’s how much our pay has fallen in the last decade. It is no wonder we have record numbers of unfilled nurse jobs.
I’ve been travelling all over the country for the last three months talking to our members. They have told me a consistent message. That nursing staff are at their breaking point.
Nurses have told me time and time again of how they leave shifts demoralised and angry by their inability to deliver the care their patients deserve.
And then they get home. Bills they can’t pay. Children going without too often.
We have to draw a line somewhere. The votes of hundreds of thousands of nurses must be the biggest wake-up call for governments.
Ministers must look in the mirror and ask how long they will put nursing staff and the public through this.
They pushed us to strike and only they can pull us back out. Ministers, my door is wide open. But don’t come knocking until you’re ready to do the right thing.
