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.

The strikes are planned to be between Dec-May.

All year round wards are busy. All year round patients are forced to wait in corridors or ambulances at a+e.

All year round patients are receiving lower standards of care than is acceptable because of a staffing crisis.

The provisions for staff on shift on strike days is higher than current staffing on a day to day basis.

I’m really worried about it being on the day my sister has a double mastectomy planned after breast cancer and chemo. I understand and support the strike action but I do worry about my sister and others like her and the Impact on them

Umm no. What’s awful and what will really be catastrophic for the NHS will be to keep continue losing nurses and other HCP at an alarming rate due to poor pay and poor working conditions.

It sounds like they are planning for bank holiday service. So emergency care only, it's likely senior staff will step in to run essential clinics so admin work won't get done. An extra bank holiday won't be that disruptive so I would be interested if they do more disruptive things such as work to rule, no OT (costs government more in agency), mass refusal to revalidate etc

You realise the “skeleton staffing” we will run at on strike day is the same if not more staff than a usual day due to the staffing crisis don’t you? What’s awful is that the NHS is running while being so short staffed, the only thing keeping it going is the goodwill of the staff who skip breaks and work overtime.

Which goes to show how important nurses and how much they ought to be valued and have decent pay and conditions.

Nurses have already had strike action before in the UK, although not nationwide. It’s not a total walk out, obviously, neither was the junior doctor strike.

Also. Its not all trusts. My trust which covers a large area, did not reach the threshold to strike.

What do you think should happen, to protect the NHS and it’s users? That nurses continue to take real-terms pay cut after pay cut, turn to food banks to make ends meet, leave the profession? Because civil talks and demands for better pay and conditions have not worked.

You don’t have to look much further than 5 years down the road. Those nurses will be stacking shelves at Tesco because they get better pay and work conditions. Then who’s going to help the NHS and its users?

Do you see how myopic and selfish your reply is, Princess?

Point to the increase in deaths due to the junior doctor strike then?

Oh wait…

The nurse strike would have no impact on emergency care or A&E. It would only affect elective procedures. Although I am not a fan of strike action, I support the nurses' strike. To be clear, they want to make a statement rather than disrupt healthcare delivery.

To add to my previous comment, as someone who has worked in maternity care for a year, I completely understand the stress and difficult work environment that nurses face.

I am hearing rumours that domicillary carers may strike, inspired by the nurses. What happens then?

Everybody has taken a hit on their pay, it's not exclusive to nurses. Staffing issues won't be addressed by giving nurses a 20% pay rise. If anything it will ultimately result in less staff.

What happens then? Hopefully they’ll get a pay rise too.

People are already unsafe due to current nursing levels. If something isn’t done about the nursing crisis then people with die due to lack of nurses.

Nurses will have to pick up the care jobs and drs will have to pick up nursing roles such as meds and cannulation, catheters and NGs and the likes. Things like transfers of care and discharges will end up being delayed further as they are the daily tasks that will have to fall to the wayside.

How would it ultimately result in less staff?

Nurses are leaving because the pay is poor and they’re being expected to do the work of 2 if not 3 people. I don’t know why people are so reluctant to believe us when we say how bad it is.

What's the fact she worked throughout the pandemic got to do with the price of proverbial fish?!

The Tory government has run our services into the ground. This one is same shit, different day. Why will the outcome of the nurses strike be successful when they were shit on by Johnson of which Sunak was a part?

MollieMarie · Today 18:20
Why strike at this time of year? The busiest time for the NHS? Pathetic and dangerous.

How utterly utterly offensive and spiteful is this comment.

No true. Pay will have a big effect on retention which is a huge issue at the moment. Nurses arent leaving their role as much as they are leaving the nhs for nursing jobs that pay more, or agency where they do the same job for double the pay at times. Having contracted nhs jobs pay closer to what the nhs pay to agency will have an effect of staff retention. This retention also reaches the overseas nurses coming here with what seems like decent pay till the cost of uk living hits them.

Regrettably, this thread has once again become very political. Accept it or not, this is all part of the domino effect that started with Brexit.

I absolutely believe you. It's dire for a lot of people at the moment.

Less staff because you're talking about a huge amount of extra resources needed to meet the extra pay. What it will lead to is higher inflation.

DS2 is a nurse. He voted to strike. I’m glad he did and am very proud of him. They can’t keep working as they are. The stories he tells me are utterly horrific and get worse on a monthly basis. It’s unlikely he will be allowed to, though, because of the field he works in.

I fully back the strike. We all should.