Nurses across Nottinghamshire have been taking part in an historic day of strikes in a dispute over pay and working conditions. NHS workers braved sub-zero temperatures as they flocked to picket lines across the city, including at Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) and City Hospital in Nottingham, from 7am today (December 15).
Arianne Johns, a deputy ward sister at QMC, was one of thousands of Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members to take industrial action across the UK. She said she was sometimes forced to work 12-hour shifts without a break due to low staffing levels.
"We suffer in the wards, we are working short-staffed all the time. There's lots of brilliant international nurses but we need time to train them and we are not getting it," the 43-year-old said. "We are looking after really poorly patients and we get abuse from some people, nobody knows what's going on behind the curtain.
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"Sometimes we're going 12 hours without a break, from 7am until 7pm, sometimes we can't even have a toilet break. You just don't have the time for it, sometimes not even for water. There's also pressure from management - we will get a call saying somewhere else is short-staffed. When you tell them you're worried it's unsafe they say the whole trust is unsafe."
Ms Johns, of West Bridgford, said she was living "penny by penny" and was in her overdraft every month. She added: "Sometimes you feel it's not worth it. We want to look after people. When you go home you think about what you did and whether you have done enough and what you could have done differently."
Kiera Blow-Manners, a health care assistant at QMC for four years, said hospital workers were increasingly burned out and tired. "We are struggling with the cost of living," said the 33-year-old.
"More and more experienced staff are leaving the profession than ever before. They don't see a future in nursing. We are unable to contend with the rising cost of living."
Public support for the striking members appeared strong, with motorists, including bus and ambulance drivers, regularly honking their horns as they passed QMC and City Hospital. Stephen Jeffrey, a pensioner who was catching the bus near QMC, said he was with strikers all the way.
"They do a great job and they don't get paid enough money. It's not just about pay, it's about caring," he said. "I was in hospital in May and they did a perfect job."
The RCN is calling on the Government to give nurses a pay increase of 19.2% - 5% above the rate of retail price inflation. The Government says that the money would have to come out of the budget for frontline NHS care, making it harder to clear its Covid-related backlog.
Speaking to Nottinghamshire Live at the picket line at QMC, RCN regional organiser Sarah Leigh Barnett said enough was enough. "This has been 10-plus years of below inflation pay. We can't attract at the bottom, we can't retain and we've got an aging workforce," she said.
"This Government makes a lot of choices - to pay the nursing workforce adequately is a choice, not to even discuss it with our general secretary is a choice." Antony Drakeford, a 55-year-old nurse who works across QMC and City Hospital, added: "I'm here to support my colleagues and highlight that it's not just about pay, it's about conditions. If you don't do anything there will be no NHS left.
"It's the worst it's ever been and I've been here for 36 years. Staffing levels are terrible, people are leaving the profession, students are dropping out during training because it's too stressful."
Lisa Kelly, chief operating officer at NUH, said: “Patient safety is absolutely paramount and it remains imperative that any members of the public that need care continue to come forward as normal, especially in emergency and life-saving cases.
“Our hospitals remain open and we are working hard to keep patients safe during strikes, while delivering the best care possible. However, to maintain patient safety, we have unfortunately had to reschedule some outpatients appointments and elective surgery. Those patients whose appointments are impacted have already been contacted and are being supported with rearranging their appointments. If you have not been contacted please attend your appointment as planned.”
Anthony May, Chief Executive of Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, added: “We’ve been planning for the strike for several weeks because it was a prospect even before the outcome of the ballot. All of our plans have come to fruition today.
“We have been working really hard with the RCN to keep our emergency services going. There’s undoubtedly going to be an impact across the trust, I don’t know what that is yet but we will mitigate as much as we can.
“We can use what happens today to learn because there is potential industrial action next week. What I’ve seen from my messages is that things are calm and our plans are working.
“At the moment we’re absolutely focused on plans for today. It’s too soon to evaluate the impact from today on individual patients and services.”
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