To ask what the nursing/NHS strike will look like?

[PinkyU]

My experience of strike action is generally a complete walk out of staff and total cessation of service to illicit the highest level of disruption to the company or organisation.

Given the hugely important role of all these HCP what will the nursing/NHS strike look like? A skeleton staff, bank nurses (are they unionised?), private sector workers?

I feel a bit daft to not know how it will work but I’m sure there are others who don’t know either so hopefully my ignorance may help others as well as myself.

There wont be a complete walk out. On the strike days staff will swap shifts if they are on a day off or do not want to strike, manager nurses will help out on the wards, vastly overpriced agency workers will offer to work and yes most are in a union, nurses on shift may join the strike action for set times, during their breaks etc. The hospitals will miraculously plan for clinics, discharges, nurse led procedures to increase on the days leading up to and following any strike day. The management, Govenors, Board and CEo might make a token appearance on the wards to offer their support and do a tea round.

My daughter is a nurse. She worked throughout the pandemic. She says it will mainly affect A&E. Not sure if this is true!

Nursing strikes in Canada are well organized all essential services are covered and provided. Management are forced to perform ancillary roles and there is tons of number crunching.
at scheduled times off site nurses at a designated location picket.
personally they are better organized shifts than usual. However some non emergency services are occasionally rebooked.

A&E is likely one of the places it will affect least.
Strike staffing will be similar to Christmas Day/Boxing Day staffing. Minimum, but within “safe” numbers. A&E, critical care, ICU etc. would be exempt. The nurses in those areas will likely show their support by wearing pins or badges.

@HappyHamsters So, technically, there won’t really be a strike as such because staff will rotate shifts and managers and bank staff will cover?

I will be interested to see. When it was the junior doctors strike (Jeremy Hunt is probably gearing up to repeat that 🙄), the Consultants cancelled clinics and procedures so they could cover the wards instead.
But how the nurses will organise who stays and who mans the picket lines I’m not sure.

www.rcn.org.uk/magazines/Action/2022/Jul/Striking-a-balance-patient-safety-during-industrial-action

For those that don't want to click on the link, a summary is below.

Any RCN industrial action must follow the life-preserving care model. This exempts:

emergency intervention for the preservation of life or the prevention of permanent disability
care required for therapeutic services without which life would be jeopardised or permanent disability would occur
urgent diagnostic procedures and assessment required to obtain information on potentially life-threatening conditions or conditions that could potentially lead to permanent disability.

I work as a cancer nurse specialist, so what I do counts as urgent, so we will be unlikely to be able to strike, whilst fully supporting it.

Hopefully the government will pull their fingers out their arses before we need to find out.

@UseOfWeapons I may sound a bit thick but surely that would apply to most nursing staff in a hospital unless out patient clinics? Like if someone's unwell enough to be in hospital they're likely going to need medication some degree of monitoring?

"My daughter is a nurse. She worked throughout the pandemic. She says it will mainly affect A&E. Not sure if this is true!"

It's not. Why would she say that? 🤔

I am a nurse in A&E. I am expecting to be working through the strike because I am expecting emergency care to be unaffected. If I'm not working on strike day then I will join a picket line.
Routine procedures will be affected but I expect an awful lot of nurses will be working as normal through the strike (in agreement with the union) to continue to provide care

If you have an outpatient appointment or elective operation planned, it may end being delayed.

That's about it.

Nobody is abandoning ED or ITU and most Wards are already at or below minimum safe staffing levels.

I wonder if nurse led outpatients will just open another day instead, ie if strike day is Thursday then the clinic will open Saturday. I wouldnt be surprised if the wards were better staffed on strike days, managers will have to help out and nursing staff will concentrate on nursing duties only.

Awful :-(

In England there aren’t any laws about staffing levels for nurses. That’s part of the problem.
www.rcn.org.uk/employment-and-pay/Safe-staffing

What's awful?

A+E, ICU, emergency theatres and inpatient wards will all run on skeletal staffing as on Bank Holidays for example, which a lot of areas are already on or below. I am unsure about chemotherapy appointments and dialysis units etc and what their provision will be. I would also imagine there will be community nurses on call like at the weekends for patients that must be seen daily at home.

All outpatient clinics cancelled and elective operations cancelled.

Staff if on rota for that day can strike if they want to regardless of the area they work in, it will be down to the organisation to get staff in from bank/agency/management to cover or if staff that are on a day off wish to come in to cover they can.

Then you wont be complaining when they increase income tax to pay for it.

Income tax isn’t the only way the government can get funds.

People will die, that's what is awful. Striking will be catastrophic for the NHS and its users.

Theres 2 unions voting. So on days RCN staff strike, Unison will be rosterd on. And vice versa. Some none emergency services will be closed for strike days. Staffing will be at Christmas day levels, which, is actually probably better than most wards are currently running at.

The effects in inpatients will be minimal, emergency units may face longer wait times, outpatients will probably be closed

No chance.

Why strike at this time of year? The busiest time for the NHS? Pathetic and dangerous.

No, they won’t. It’s this kind of scaremongering that turns people against nurses. The public won’t be affected by the strike, it will have little to no impact on day to day services. Which is why they have us over a barrel, unfortunately.

Pathetic and dangerous is the working conditions in the NHS st the moment. Dangerous workloads put upon underpaid nurses and putting patient safety at risk.