For many of the nurses out on strike, today is a “tragic day”.
Pat Cullen, the head of the Royal College of Nursing, used those words to describe how nurses were feeling on the first day of industrial action they have taken in a century.
Tens of thousands of nurses are walking out of hospitals across England, Wales and Northern Ireland this morning in a dispute with the government over pay rise offers that do not keep pace with inflation.
Nurses are asking for a pay increase of 5% above RPI inflation — which equates to a 19% rise — but the government has said that is simply unaffordable in the current economic climate.
But the profession has also argued that the current situation is unsustainable.
The cost of living crisis has become so acute that around a quarter of hospitals have set up food banks to look after their staff, and the industry has long complained of losing talented nurses to supermarkets, hospitality and even Amazon warehouses because of low pay.
The starting salary for a band five, newly qualified nurse is £27,055 a year — nearly £6,000 below average salary in the UK, which stands at £33,000.
And when you factor in a waiting list of 7.2 million people, it is not just the pay but the workload and stress that is contributing to nurses withdrawing their labour.
On the historic day of industrial action, here’s what some nurses on the picket line told the PA news agency when asked about why they were striking.
Cardiff: “We are understaffed to a point where experienced nurses are going home crying”
Joanne McCarthy, a paediatric surgical nurse, joined the picket line outside the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff from 7am after finishing a night shift.
She said: “I’ve been a nurse for 22 years, and I’ve never seen it like this.
“We are understaffed to a point where experienced nurses are going home crying.
“We can’t support junior staff so we have no retention, and our managers’ hands are tied.
“It is about the money, and people who say it’s not, I don’t necessarily agree with them, but it’s not only about the money – I think that’s what they’re trying to portray and it’s wrong.
“We go into nursing to care for families, to look after them as we would want our own families to be, but we can’t do that at the minute, it’s heartbreaking. That’s what we’re out here fighting for today.
“I just hope that people realise that it’s not just for nurses we’re striking. We are doing this is to keep free health service going where we can actually care for people.”
Another nurse who did not want to be identified said she had friends who were being forced to use foodbanks.
“I’ve got friends I work with who are having to go to food banks, or they’re going into debt because they can’t make their mortgage payment every month, and some have actually divorced or split up with their partner mainly because the impact of all the hours they’re having to work to make ends meet,” they said.
A recently qualified nurse said she had been unable to save any money towards a house because of low pay.
“The situation is really bad for most nurses, especially starting out. It’s just me and my boyfriend at our house and we’re paying £650 a month in rent. He’s full time just like me and we can’t save anything. I’ve got nothing in savings. We want to save up a deposit for a house, but it’s gonna take 20 years at this point.”
One nurse said there were actually more nurses on shift today despite the strike because staffing levels are so low.
“They say they’re running on minimum nurses today because of the strikes but there’s more nurses per ward today than that the wards usually run at,” they said.
“They’ve said you have to have six or seven nurses to a ward today when usually we’re running at four or five per ward.
“And you wonder why students come in and and worry about what they’re getting themselves into, because every place that they go it’s just stress everywhere and nobody’s happy.”
Belfast: “We are the people who everyone clapped for and yet the government is forcing us on to the picket line today”
Michael Rooney, a nurse of 27 years, works in the acute mental health inpatient centre at Belfast City Hospital.
He said that while he was “lucky” to have enjoyed a good career of 27 years, his son was struggling on low pay.
“He’s a brand new staff nurse and he’s currently on £25,600, not the £32,000 that the government says new nurses are on.
“He and a lot of his colleagues came out early of their training to work on the wards to protect the public from Covid and he’s now going to be on strike today for a fair pay award.”
Rooney said nurses’ pay has been cut in real terms by 20% over the last decade while the salaries of some government officials have increased by 20% over the same period.
“We are the people who everyone clapped for and yet the government is forcing us on to the picket line today,” he said.
London: “I’ve opted out of my pension because it’s so expensive.”
Will, a 25-year-old nurse who works in infectious diseases at St Thomas’ hospital in London, said he was striking because of the pay, working conditions and level of patient care that was being provided.
“We have been pushed to this,” he said. “It’s not been an easy decision. This has been made through years and years of what we feel is a lack of investment, not just funding but investment emotionally and socially into nursing.
“I’m also a rep for the Royal College of Nursing and, essentially, when we first had this ballot it felt like a duty as an RCN rep to come out and make sure we supported the rest of the nursing workforce and, for me, it’s to support the junior nurses coming in, to support the future of our work force.”
Asked about the impact of cost-of-living pressures, he said the situation was “really hard”.
“You’re picking up extra shifts, you’re doing overtime, you’re doing bank shifts to try and pay for these things.
“Doing 80-hour weeks just to try and live, your bills constantly going up, and I’m still paying off my £70,000 nursing debt from my student finance because I was unfortunate enough [that] the year I started my degree I had to pay for my nursing degree because the bursary had been scrapped by the government.
“My pension, which I opted out of because it’s just so expensive – a 13% pension which you have to contribute to is £300 or £400 a month. How can I afford that when I can’t afford to heat my house?”
Linda Tovey, a critical care nurse who was also on the picket line at St Thomas’ hospital, said it was “increasingly difficult to come to work and go home and think ‘Actually, I don’t think I can turn the heating on’.”
“My wages aren’t bad for a nurse but I still have to think about what I’m doing with my money every month and that is not the position I imagined myself being in,” she continued.
“People do a huge amount of extra work, in terms of studying and all that kind of stuff, and you don’t get the recognition in terms of wages.
“My own particular circumstances mean I do just about have some money left at the end of the month but I still go home and think twice about turning a light on.
“I don’t cook food in my oven very often since I realised to cook one meal costs the same as it used to cost me for my electricity the whole day.”
Liverpool: “Nurses are coming into work to care for other people and no one’s caring for them.”
Staff nurse Joanne McArthur, 51, on the picket line outside Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool, said: “We’ve got nurses that are leaving because of unsafe practices on the ward, not being able to give the patients the patient care that they deserve.
“We come into this profession for that, so that we can give what we’ve been trained to do, and unfortunately we’re just not able to do that because of the way the situation is.
“It’s took a long point for us to get to the point that we are and hopefully there’ll be something from this today, hopefully it will be positive and hopefully we can push forward and make a stance on what we need.”
She said nurses should not have to get used to “having to make do”.
“You’ll go on duty and there’ll be supposedly four staff nurses on and you’ll end up with two. That’s to look after 28 patients which is really, really dangerous.”
McArthur said nurses were leaving the profession to work in supermarkets and domestic services because the money was better.
Liverpool staff nurse Kelly Hopkins, who has been a nurse for 25 years, said she felt “sad” when she went into work.
“I have connections with the food bank and there are more and more nurses using the food bank which is just not acceptable.
“They’re coming into work to care for other people and no one’s caring for them.
“They’re having to use food banks, they’re coming in cold, they’re going without food to feed their children, it’s just crazy.”
Staff nurse Kelly Hopkins, 46, said nursing was struggling to attract new talent.
“There’s over 60,000 vacancies in nursing and we just can’t attract new talent.
“I was on the ward with a newly qualified staff nurse who was £65,000 in debt and she was earning £27,000.
“The wards are understaffed which is affecting patient care. I came into nursing to give good nursing care and we can’t give it because there’s not enough of it.
“Patients aren’t getting their teeth brushed, they’re lying in their own waste because there aren’t enough of us, we can’t split ourselves in two, especially on the wards.
“Unless we stand up and say something it’s just going to get worse.”