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Nurses’ strike: news from the third round of industrial action

Nurses at trusts across England brave freezing conditions to stand on picket lines in a third day of historic strikes
- @alibaabra
- @_ShrutiST
- @journoandrea
Posted 18 January 2023 - 18:20
Nurses on strike outside Northern General Hospital, Sheffield

Nurses at trusts across England brave freezing conditions to stand on picket lines in a third day of historic strikes

Striking nurses at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London
Nurses on strike outside Northern General Hospital, Sheffield Picture: John Houlihan

Nurses are once again braving freezing conditions to stand in solidarity on the picket line for a third day of historic strike action.

Following two strike days in December, nursing staff across England will stage 12-hour walkouts today and tomorrow across 55 NHS trusts. In the weeks since the last strike on 20 December nurses have faced increasing winter pressures, with staff in all areas of nursing raising concerns about patient safety and unsustainable working conditions.

Nursing staff will be walking out from 7am to 7pm. Share your pictures from the picket line by tweeting us @NurseStandard

Pat Cullen joins Sheffield picket line

Nurses in Sheffield were joined by RCN general secretary Pat Cullen on the picket line.

Registered nurse Deborah Fox, who now works in the outpatients department at Sheffield General Hospital, became tearful as Ms Cullen joined nursing staff at the Sheffield General Hospital for a third day of historic strike action.

Ms Cullen spoke to dozens of nurses gathered outside the hospital and said they ‘must continue the fight together’ for patient care.

Read the full story here: Pat Cullen joins striking nurses on Sheffield picket line

‘Working in NHS is like a war zone’

Nurses in Brighton have described working in the NHS as like being in a war zone as the NHS crisis deepens and colleagues struggle to make ends meet.

Speaking to Nursing Standard reporter Shruti Sheth Trivedi on the picket line at Brighton General Hospital today, staff nurse in dermatology Melissa Brown said nurses were often redeployed across hospitals in the area, leaving her department understaffed.

Ms Brown said: ‘They experience such horrors, they’ve described it as a war zone. It’s absolute chaos, we’re in dire straits.'

Read the full story here: Striking nurses compare working in NHS to a war zone

3:45pm

‘We are the NHS’: nurses and supporters march to Downing Street

Hundreds of nurses and members of the public have begun a march from University College London Hospital (UCLH) to Downing Street to call on prime minister Rishi Sunak to give a fair pay to nurses.

The atmosphere is electric and busy, with chants of ‘We are the NHS’ and ‘Enough is enough’ heard loud and clear.

RCNi editorial assistant Serafina Basciano is at the march and described it as very loud and full of energy. They have begun a chant of ‘1,2,3,4,5 keep our NHS alive’ as the walk along the streets of London.

She said members of the public are also getting involved with people coming out of shops and cafes to wave and show their support.

Emergency nurse at St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Rita Castro told Nursing Standard: ‘We need change, we are hoping for change and if we carry on like this we won’t have an NHS for long… everyone is going to suffer with this.’

She said her biggest concerns at work were safe staffing, nurses’ mental health and well-being, a lack of resources and not enough pay.

‘It’s the people who are paying for this, we need to be able to take care of them and if we’re tired we will not do our job as well as we want. It’s minimal staff working, we need to change,’ she said.

Her message to the government was: ‘Hear us out, we never complain, so when we do… it’s really bad.’

Earlier at UCLH comedian Rob Delaney joined the picket line to show his support for nurses because he ‘wouldn’t be anywhere else today’.

1.55pm

‘I fear we will lose the NHS’

Crisis scenes witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic will become ‘a daily occurrence’ if the government doesn’t start to negotiate on pay, a practice education lead has said.

Drew Perkins was speaking to Nursing Standard from the picket line outside Whiston Hospital, run by St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He said retention and recruitment problems were causing the ‘perfect storm’ in the north west.

‘My genuine honest fear is that we will lose big chunks of the NHS, if not all of it in its entirety. I think we’re going to get to the point where we’re going to have to start closing wards,’ he added.

‘I think if we carry on the way that we are, the scenes we saw during COVID will be a daily occurrence, even in summer. Patients are very much at risk of dying in our corridors, it’s already happening.’

Mr Perkins said the NHS was now competing with employers such as Asda and McDonalds who are paying more money for entry level roles.

He added that the 4% pay rise offered by the government isn’t going to touch the ‘massive gaps’ between nurses pay' and the cost of living.

‘We’re asking brand new staff to come in and work in harsh environments when lots of them can’t even afford to come into work,’ he said.

‘In nursing 20 years ago we were making beds and feeding patients, now we’re prescribing drugs, we’re running services and we’re running hospitals. We are making life-critical decisions every single day.

‘When you throw all of that together you’ve got the perfect storm, we’re being asked to do more for less.’

1.21pm

Will picket line dogs give ministers paws for thought?

Our furry friends are also out in force today, barking loudly about fair pay for nurses.
Sporting RCN branded coats and signs that read ‘fair pay, not paw pay’ the dogs on picket lines have a serious message behind their cute faces.
Is there a dog on your picket line? We want to see them. Tweet your pictures to us @NurseStandard

Picket line pooch on at King's College Hospital in London Picture: Alamy

12.23pm

Nurses' picket line takes up both sides of the road outside Preston hospital

The picket line at Whiston Hospital in Preston has become so big that nurses have taken up both sides of the road outside the hospital.
RCN general secretary Pat Cullen visited nurses on the picket line this morning and said their message was loud and clear: ‘We expect you to keep fighting for us and our patients’.

Elsewhere across the north west of England nurses are also joining picket lines in their fight for better pay. A local café donated breakfast to nurses in Northwich, while others in Wirral have been sustained with a pizza delivery.

12.05pm

Cancer patient joins picket line to give thanks to nurses

J. E. Seuk and her husband show their support. Picture: Shruti Sheth Trivedi

It’s not looking any warmer in the south of England either as nurses take to the picket line in Brighton and Sussex.

Don’t let the sunshine and blue skies fool you – frost covers the ground as nurses chant for fair pay and patient safety.

Our reporter Shruti Sheth Trivedi is in Brighton today. She described the picket lines as busy with plenty of public support.

Cancer patient J.E. Seuk and her husband joined the picket line to show their support for the nurses who have cared for her during her treatment.

11.42am

Tell the government we mean business, says East Midlands nurse

Nurses at Florence Nightingale Community Hospital in Derby Picture: Alison Stacey

Nurses braved snow and ice on picket lines in the East Midlands today as they continued their fight for fairer pay and working conditions.
One RCN East Midlands member called on the government to ‘start talking’ to negotiate a better deal, but added that in the meantime nurses ‘mean business’.

Our reporter Alison Stacey was at the picket line at Florence Nightingale Community Hospital this morning, where nurses held signs that said ‘honk if you support fair pay for nurses’.

10.45am

Strikers prepare to march for safer patient care

The atmosphere is high in adrenaline on the picket line at University College Hospital London (UCLH) this morning.

Nurses on the picket line at University College Hospital London

Nurses were chanting ‘claps don’t pay the bills’ and ‘what do we want? Fair pay!’ as passers by cheered and honked their car horns.

Haematology blood cancer nurse David Hendy told Nursing Standard that the public were supportive of strike action.

‘There is a focus on the disruption inside hospitals on strike days, but what people need to understand is what it is like on a normal day,’ he said.

‘Care is unsafe because of the lack of nursing staff. Patients are left in pain and sometimes lying in bodily fluids because there are so few nurses. I don’t want to be a nurse in these circumstances. I don’t want to see patients being cared for in this way. It’s demoralising and that’s why nurses are leaving.’

Hundreds of people are due to march from UCLH to Downing St from 2.30pm, including author and broadcaster Michael Rosen.

10am

MP says pay rises for nurses would threaten the economy

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said increasing public sector spending would be the ‘worst thing’ for the economy given that inflation is starting to fall.

‘We have to approach this with great caution, because inflation is the big evil… we have to approach these public sector pay discussions with that broader mission in mind, which is to bring down inflation by at least 50% over the course of this year,’ he told Kay Burley on Sky News this morning.

The rate of consumer prices index (CPI) inflation fell to 10.5% in December from 10.7%, but food prices continued to soar reaching their highest rate since 1977.

The RCN has campaigned for a pay rise of 5% above inflation, but the government has maintained that is unaffordable.

9.30am

Public support for striking nurses remains strong

Support and solidarity with nurses is already pouring in.

People are sharing their personal experiences with the NHS, with one patient tweeting a picture of her broken ankle as she waits for treatment at Worthing Hospital, part of Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Others have thanked nurses who cared for the littlest of patients.

9am

‘Give the NHS a fighting chance’: NHS leaders call for talks

NHS leaders have called on the government to enter a renewed round of talks with unions or risk further delays to patient care in the weeks ahead.

It comes as the RCN announced more strikes in February, alongside more expected ambulance walk outs and the possibility of a junior doctors strike in March.

NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor said: ‘We’ve been saying for weeks that the strike action couldn’t have come at a more difficult time for the NHS, but we hoped a compromise would be reached by now to bring an end to the impasse.

‘Ahead of the next round of strikes, our message to the government is to give the NHS a fighting chance and do all you can to bring an end to this damaging dispute. The Prime Minister must not allow the stand-off in the wider public sector to hold back a deal being reached in the NHS.’

8.30am

‘Nurses are striking because people are dying’

The message is loud and clear from nurses – the strikes are about more than a pay rise, they are about safe-staffing and the future of the NHS.

RCN general secretary Pat Cullen urged the government to ‘pay nursing staff fairly to give the public the care they deserve’.

‘People aren’t dying because nurses are striking. Nurses are striking because people are dying. That is how severe things are in the NHS and it is time the prime minister led a fight for its future,’ she said.

Ms Cullen, who started the day on the picket line at Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan, added that today’s action is a ‘modest escalation’ ahead of February’s strikes.

Barclay says earlier strikes saw 30,000 elective procedures and outpatient appointments cancelled

Health and social care secretary Steve Barclay has maintained his stance that the RCN’s pay demands are unaffordable and that he has accepted the recommendations made by the NHS Pay Review Body last year.

Mr Barclay said: ‘Patients will understandably be worried by the prospect of further strike action by nurses – the previous two days of nurse strikes saw around 30,000 elective procedures and outpatient appointments cancelled. It is inevitable industrial action will have an impact on patients.

‘I have had constructive talks with the RCN and other unions about the 2023-24 pay process and look forward to continuing that dialogue.’

Nursing staff will be walking out from 7am to 7pm. Share your pictures from the picket line by tweeting us @NurseStandard

Health minister Maria Caulfield: Let's talk and find common ground

Health minister and nurse Maria Caulfield has said giving in to nurses' pay demands would risk driving inflation higher.

Writing for Nursing Standard, the Conservative MP for Lewes said the government is not asking nurses to work harder, but wants unions to work with it on ways to make the health service work better.

Her message to nurses was: ‘We are all on the same side.’

You can read her piece in full here: Let’s talk and find common ground to end nurses’ strikes

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