To Think That Nurses Shouldn't HAVE To Go On Strike

[TheShellBeach]

They should have had a decent pay rise without having to resort to strike action.
Successive governments have relied on nurses' goodwill and reluctance to strike.

They worked so hard throughout the pandemic. They worked hard before it.

They're still working hard. It's a kick in the teeth to make them choose between putting patient safety at risk and getting a living wage.

I hate the fact it’s come to this and wouldn’t be striking if I didn’t have to, but I’m now at a point where I’m leaving my day job as a nurse, going home for dinner and then going back out to work behind a bar in the evening, then covering a different nursing service at the weekends just to pay the bills. I’m probably not a very safe nurse sometimes because I’m exhausted but I have no choice at the moment.

That is dreadful. I am so sorry.

Who are the 1:5 people who think I'm being unreasonable?

Sorry. My maths is out.

It's 1:4 people who think I'm unreasonable.

I support the strikes. I agree no one goes on strike for fun, they lose wages and it causes stress.

I am so angry with the government for refusing to talk, for refusing to govern

Nurses, and others, are striking, because they cannot afford not to. (Sorry, double negative). They're worried about the demands that keep getting heaped on them, with ever decreasing resources in terms of staffing, equipment, and health and safety standards to support them.

I support you all until the cows come home. If there are ways for people to be allies, please let me know.

There are always people who don't support strikers, there are people who think striking should be illegal.

Do not worry about those people, you won't change their minds.

In politics you have to ignore the fringes and focus on the middle.

The majority of Tories expect to lose the next election. That is all that matters.

Starmer can't be seen on the picket line. But Labour would pay nurses better, that is just their ideology.

A situation caused by the government chronically underfunding the NHS despite promising them an extra £350 a million a week not so long ago.

The government could resolve the whole problem by returning to the table and actually hashing out a realistic pay package. They have the money, they just don't want to spend it.

I'm a nurse, almost 30 years qualified. I love my specialist nurse role, but I see broken and exhausted nurses around me every day. Broken because they know they cannot safely do the job they trained for.
It breaks my heart to go out on strike this week, but we need to do something. I cannot believe that the government won't even make an effort to negotiate, and as a PP said, where on earth is the voice of Labour in all this?!
My daughter is a student nurse, she will make a brilliant nurse but without investment in the workforce, will she thrive?
I'm striking for her, for the future of the NHS and most importantly for the safety of my patients.

Me too.

Rishi Sunak is a weak PM in charge of a weak government. If Liz Truss was a wet lettuce, he's the tepid backwash left in the dish after you've tipped the lettuce out.

Yes. Just another unelected PM, foisted on us by the Tories.

I know someone who clapped and banged pots and pans. She doesn't believe anyone like nurses, firefighters etc should be allowed to go on strike. She used to be in the police and wasn't allowed to and thinks other public service employees shouldn't be allowed to either.

Heated words were had.

Aye I voted to strike even though it broke my heart. I never thought I'd be in a place I'd see it as the only action but it sadly is. So many wonderful nurses leaving because the conditions are just horrendous at the moment. It's impossible to give the level of care we want to, it's impossible to actually give the minimum level of care in honesty; it's scary. If things don't improve I'll be leaving next year. I'm not sure to do what, all I have ever wanted to be is a nurse, I went to uni at 18 and have loved my job until the past few years- this year has been the absolutely worst though with no signs of things getting better.

I have a friend who is in her first year of nursing training
I take my hat off to her because its bloody hard work.
bearing in mind shes a year 1 student she is doing placement and bank shifts as a HCA totalling 40-50 hours a week! And she says she cant leave when her "shift" is done because no one is there to take over, its a sorry state

My mum was a nurse for over 30 years and retired she wouldn't suggest it as a job to anyone as it is now

Over worked under paid political and unsafe

I'll be supporting the strikes.

I fully support the strike. I cannot do my job without nurses. They show up time and time again. Today with all the rail strikes and snow, everyone in the hospital showed up. From the caterers to cook the patient food, to the cleaners. Every member of my hospital goes above and beyond for patients. The nurses are willing to stand in the cold all day, lose a days wage to campaign for safer better healthcare for all of us. They worked through a pandemic putting themselves at risk and will do so again and again.

Yeah I totally agree with it but honestly can't even give them a second thought at the min as I'm completely fucked myself too I'm afraid.

I’m a nurse qualified 32 years. Laterally working in a role supporting students on placement . Went semi retired and working two days a week in a dementia unit. Hourly rate is decent but since it’s private, no sick pay and minimum holidays. They can’t recruit permanent staff so rely on agency - some agency nurses getting as much as £50 an hour. So £500 a shift with very little responsibility- they might be on “in charge” as the only nurse on duty but they basically give out the medicines and do little else. If I am on after a few days of agency cover, I have to make up all the paperwork (care plans, medicines audits, monthly reviews etc) for half the money they get. plus we get a lot of young guys doing agency care work who lots of the female residents will not let them provide personal care so they are getting very well paid for very little work.

It’s the same in the NHS. Lots of newly qualified nurses choosing to do agency and make a good wage with less stress/responsibility- it was the complete opposite when I qualified in 1989.

It’s a shit show

I’m a nursing manager and my team voted to strike, which I fully support.

We work in quite a niche role where we’re able to maintain a good level of patient care but my heart aches for my colleagues in A&E who turn in every day knowing they’re going to be short staffed, working in dangerous conditions, facing abuse and not be able to provide the care they want to, it’s shit and something needs to change, people have no idea how bad it is.

Ah, we're back to 1:5 thinking IABU.

FFS.

It's not the nurses who are putting patient lives at risk, and it's such a shitty tactic from the Tories to say that it is. Bastards

Would love to hear the views from those who think yabu.

Except you don't really want to hear those views, do you? You want to shout them down in this echo chamber where you can all pat yourself on the back at how right you are.

Yet still people will vote them in.

Totally behind anyone who feels they need to strike. Especially the medical profession.

Until we can have a proper conversation about what the NHS should be and not treat the subject as a sacred cow, this will always come up, and yes pay is relative

Thinking that just improving NHS pay for nurses will resolve the issues is short term thinking and politically biased.

On top of that, thinking that the solution to the NHS is to throw more money at it is not based on any real world situations and is just partisan.

It will only be a couple of years into the next labour government for some to call out 'not true labour', it's a classic case of short termism, in adecade we will ignore Blair introuding PFI and bearing the brunt of those loans and pretending that it is the tories defunding the NHS while perctenage to GDP is outstripping our better european counterparts.

I support them.
I don't even think that it's a case that they've had enough, I genuinely think they've collectively got no more to give, it's all been given and by and large, nurses (as well as associated roles) are broken, leaving in droves, patient safety is compromised massively, people are dying and no one is listening or even trying to do anything about it.
Strikes seem to be the only way left to try and get someone with the power to change things to listen. We desperately need more nurses, but who's going to sign up for a job that's notoriously overworked, underpaid, under resourced and then blamed for the inevitable outcome?

I'm not bothered about explanations from those who disagree with the strikes - but I do think they should put their money where their mouth is, get themselves a nursing degree and go off and be in the same situation as our nurses are now - and not complain. I doubt they will though.

2 generations of my family nursed their whole careers (one still does) and none of them recommended it now because of the conditions.

Retired due to ill health after 38 years in nursing, it’s always been a underfunded profession, probably because it was mainly women, I remember my first monthly pay back in 1979 of £126 for 40 hour weeks of early, lates and nights…!