Last week in the biggest vote in 106-year history of the nursing union, over 350,000 NHS nurses across the country took to the ballot box to decide whether they would take strike action for better pay.
The Royal College of Nurses (RCN) revealed that members at the majority of NHS employers across the UK voted in favour of striking, including at some of the leading hospitals in the country.
The ballot was called following NHS Agenda for Change pay announcements earlier this year, which revealed that experienced nurses were 20 per cent worse off in real terms, compared with a decade ago.
NHS nursing vacancies - and waiting times for appointments and treatments - are at an all-time high, and hordes of nurses are leaving the profession in search of better-paid work.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt admitted yesterday that after 12 years of Tory rule, the NHS is on the brink of collapse. His Autumn Statement promised to increase the NHS budget by £3.3 billion in each of the next two years.
Despite this, the RCN confirmed that unless negotiations on pay take place within days, the strikes would go ahead.
But with the news of the impending strike - the dates for which have not yet been confirmed - accusations of irresponsibility have been slung by those who disagree with the strike and see it as a selfish act of patient abandonment.
Nurse Holly Johnston is one of the thousands of nurses who voted for, and will be taking part in the strikes. She argued: “We believe it's the best thing that we can do for our patients and for the future of the NHS”.
She told the Mirror: "There's already people dying, there's already people not getting appointments, we've got seven million on the waiting list, and that's not going to go down unless we address the staffing issues."
Holly, who works as an oncology nurse, is keen for others to understand why nurses across this country have taken this drastic decision, highlighting staff shortages as a huge obstacle causing hold-ups in the healthcare system.
"We're struggling to keep people in the job, as many are leaving and going to work for either better-paid jobs with less responsibility, or jobs that are more secure.
"It's severely understaffed. I think there's a figure that says 75 per cent of shifts are understaffed. For every extra patient that a nurse takes on, they've got a seven per cent increase in the risk of death. That’s what we’re dealing with."
The Sheffield nurse described how consistently low pay has left many nurses feeling undervalued and desperate - and even struggling with the day-to-day costs of living.
She said: "I've heard of stories of members [of the Union] not being able to get work because they can't afford the fuel costs. So they're sleeping in the car, even student nurses.
"You want the people that are looking after you to be able to have decent standards of living. You don't want them overly tired, overly worked. Because I know I wouldn't want to be looked after by a nurse that’s struggling like that."
Holly blamed the Tory government for the huge problems the NHS was facing, insisting that despite staff's best efforts to change things before now, they now have no other option but to strike.
"The government has known about this for a long time because we've all been shouting about it in our unions and our campaigns. We've been shouting about it, and it's not being addressed."
Iain Wilson, who works as a substance misuse nurse and helps those overcoming addiction, agrees.
He said: "It feels like enough is enough. I've been a nurse since the Tories got in and it’s been about 12 years of them pushing and holding our pay down. Numbers [of staff] falling.
"It just feels like the NHS is really being threatened by this government. All of us are seeing our work getting harder, and pay cheques not going as far and our lives getting harder.
"The Tories haven't listened to us. We have to make them listen.
"This is about protecting patients and about making sure that nursing is a good profession, like it always has been. That is the most important thing for patients really."
Iain, who lives and works in Lewisham with some of society's most vulnerable people, described how the problems affected his own team, with staff shortages often leading to shifts on his own, when he should be working with colleagues
“It's about doing the job, effectively. We should be a four-person team but for six months it has been really just me."
He claimed that low pay is leading many health care professionals to make tough decisions about how they spend their money, saying it's "exhausting" having to constantly choose.
With the recent news that a quarter of hospitals have set up food banks to feed staff that are struggling in the current economic climate, Iain said, "enough is enough".
"People get sick of having to choose between either your pension or your rent. The money doesn't go far enough to pay rents in London, so people cut their pensions or they cut their union memberships."
Both Iain and Holly agreed that particularly after the chaos of the pandemic and it’s ongoing aftermath, nurses deserved more appreciation and pay.
Iain said: "When people have gone above and beyond every single day, and I think what people forget is that the country during this pandemic totally relied on lots of very young nurses from all over the world in particular, who it feels like maybe didn't get the recognition and the attention that was deserved.
"And then, this all just feels like a slap in the face."
Holly said: "It was the pandemic that highlighted the problems that already existed in the NHS, it really sort of highlighted the fundamental issues of staffing and also patient and staff safety."
Both of the nurses, who spoke exclusively to the Mirror, also agreed that taking the decision to strike was not easy, but that they have been left with no choice.
Holly said: "It wasn’t an easy decision, but we’ve got no other choice now. I just think it's sad we've got to this point."
But it's not just nurses who are supporting the strikes. Doctor John Puntis, retired consultant paediatrician, is the Chairman of Keep our NHS Public and wholeheartedly supports the decision to strike.
He said: "[Nurses are striking because of] the pressures at work, so the fact that their work was always quite intense and obviously, in some cases is quite emotionally draining.
"There’s this issue of moral injury where, you know, nurses, like all clinicians, want to provide a high standard of care to patients but are feeling that they just can't do that at the moment."
Dr Puntis is eager for nurses to receive better pay to match today’s record levels of inflation.
"Pay is being eroded, probably by around 15 per cent over the past 10 years or so. You've got this big cost of living, right, so I think it's the fact they're underpaid and feel uncared for, the NHS is not a great employer in some way. Staff don’t feel listened to or valued.
"Nurses can have a £50,000 debt from studying before they even start work since bursaries have been taken away."
He also insisted that quality of patient care was dependent on that, and believed patients are dying due to staff shortages.
"The government is doing huge damage to the health service and this is already having a major impact on patients. And you can't provide any care unless you have staff so the starting point has to be a workforce that is adequately paid and feels appreciated.
"Nurses are simply asking for more support and protection from the government."
The RCN has put forward a pay rise of five per cent above inflation to overcome any real-terms pay cuts that staff have experienced over the past decade, and support nursing staff through the cost-of-living crisis.
RCN General Secretary & Chief Executive Pat Cullen said about the vote: “This is a defining moment in our history, and our fight will continue through strike action and beyond for as long as it takes to win justice for the nursing profession and our patients.
“Anger has become action – our members are saying enough is enough. The voice of nursing in the UK is strong and I will make sure it is heard. Our members will no longer tolerate a financial knife-edge at home and a raw deal at work.
“This action will be as much for patients as it is for nurses. Standards are falling too low and we have strong public backing for our campaign to raise them. This winter, we are asking the public to show nursing staff you are with us.”
Emergency services and urgent care will still be available throughout the strike period.
