Rishi Sunak was urged to end nurses’ strikes by talking pay as tens of thousands staged a second walkout.
Nurses warned the Prime Minister that there will soon be nobody left to help care for patients, and that they're even far too drained to speak to their family after a long day at work.
Royal College of Nursing chief Pat Cullen called on the Prime Minister to come to the negotiating table after Health Secretary Steve Barclay twice refused to discuss pay in meetings with the nurses’ union.
On the picket line yesterday, Ms Cullen said: “I want to say to the PM, please step in now and do the decent thing on behalf of every patient and member of the public.
“But please do the decent thing also for nursing staff – get round the table and start to talk to me on their behalf. That’s the only respectful and decent thing to do. This is completely now on his desk to actually bring a resolution to this.”
Around a quarter of hospitals and community teams in England took part in the strike, alongside all trusts in Northern Ireland and all but one health board in Wales.
But the RCN has ensured staffing for chemotherapy, emergency cancer services, dialysis, critical care units, neonatal and paediatric intensive care and some other services.
The union is locked in a bitter dispute with the Government that is likely to escalate in the new year for up to six months.
No10 confirmed the PM has not chaired a single COBRA meeting on the strikes and has not joined talks with unions. Ms Cullen said nurses will have “no option” but to continue strikes in January if ministers do not come to the table.
Speaking outside the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, she added: “Unfortunately more nursing staff will be involved in future striking and also further hospitals will be included in the industrial actions.”
Asked if this would include areas protected from strikes such as cancer appointments, she said: “Those decisions haven’t been made yet.
“But what I will say is that in any future industrial action, safety will be the first consideration for us.”
Some 320,000 nurses took part in the RCN strike ballot triggering walkouts at 44 NHS trusts. Numbers striking will soar next year if the Government keeps refusing to discuss pay. The ballot result gives the RCN a six-month mandate for action.
Nurses stood on picket lines across the country yesterday accompanied by their families and colleagues who were not on shift.
Outside Addenbroke’s Hospital in Cambridge, Wendy Garri Godino, 27, who earns £27,000 a year in surgical assessment, said: “This winter I can’t afford the heating. My colleagues are off sick through cold, stress and anxiety..”
Outside University Hospital Wales in Cardiff was Madelaine Watkins, 45, a clinical nurse specialist in mental health. She said: “We’ve got newly qualified nurses and staff using food banks, and they’re opening food banks in hospitals now. These are highly qualified professionals who just want to do their job and they haven’t got enough money to pay the rent and pay the bills.”
The RCN says industrial action is the last resort to improve NHS pay and help fill the 47,000 nursing vacancies that are leading to dangerous care. Ms Cullen said: “If this Government keeps giving our nursing staff the cold shoulder, come January we will see more hospitals being involved and striking and that means more nursing staff involved.”
The RCN has been calling for a pay rise 5% above inflation, but has indicated it would accept a lower offer. When it submitted the 5% figure to the independent pay review body in March, inflation was at 7.5%, but it has since soared, with the RPI at 14.2% in September.
The Government has given the NHS around 4% in the latest of a decade of below-inflation deals.
It has also refused to “fully fund” any rise, meaning cash has to be directed from already stretched NHS budgets leading to some services being reduced.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay has twice met the RCN but refused to discuss pay. He said: “The RCN’s demands are unaffordable during these challenging times.”
"Too drained to talk to family"
Nurse Betty Okot has to put in overtime twice a week just to afford the bus fare to work.
Betty, who works at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, joined the picket line from a night shift. She said her job had changed dramatically since she joined in 2013.
She said: “You’re frustrated because you don’t have enough staff.
“Sometimes I feel like looking for another job because the stress I’m getting, I’m not getting paid for. You come home and can’t talk to the family because you’re drained.
“Fair pay will make our lives easier.
“The Government needs to sort out the shortage with nurses.
“Young people are leaving. We are getting old and we’ll retire, then there’ll be no one else.”
"New generation needs support"
Paediatric palliative care nurse Rebecca Maylor says the strikes are needed to “support the future generation of nurses”.
Mum-of-two Rebecca, 35, added outside Bradford Royal Infirmary: “We need pair pay, we want better staff levels and we want to be treated fairly.”
Nurse Ines Almedia, 37, said of the “unbearable” situation: “It’s not even a question of money for me... nurse-to-patient ratio is unsafe.”
Yvonne Drury, 60, retired after 40 years in the NHS but comes back twice a week.
She said: “If it wasn’t for people like me... and these young nurses doing all these extra shifts, the whole thing would fall apart. Recovery nurse Floramie Navarra, 45, said: “Some nurses do the job of two or three people.”
"I'm in pain but I have care duty"
Senior nurse Sharon Abdulla, 51, takes daily medication to ease arthritis so she can look after patients at St Thomas’ Hospital in London.
She wants ministers to spend a day living in nurses’ shoes and at least sit around the table to discuss wages.
Sharon, 51, right, lost nine members of her family during Covid.
Her daughter Shay, 12, told her she wants less for Christmas as she knows the financial strain the family is under amid rising energy bills.
Sharon, a mum of three, said: “If the Government can’t meet the 19% then just talk to us. Speak to the nurses, work with us and you will see what we’re going through.
“I’m in pain but I get on with it because I have a duty of care. Nurses do it because they care.”
