On a morning when icy conditions slowed the region to a crawl, nurses were in place on the picket line by sunrise in what is building into a fight to the bitter end.
Hundreds of staff braved the freezing temperatures and lined both sides of the pavement outside Whiston Hospital yesterday. The action was the first of consecutive strike days – an escalation on December’s historic action by Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members.
While Liverpool hospitals were not part of this week’s demonstration, 55 NHS trusts across England were included. This involved staff at Knowsley, Wirral and St Helens hospitals.
READ MORE: Nurses set to go on strike on two more days next month
As the row over pay and conditions intensifies, the RCN’s calls for a 5% above inflation rise in wages have so far fallen on deaf ears. Writing in The Independent on Tuesday, Health Secretary Steve Barclay said he wanted to “continue the constructive dialogue with union leaders” in the hope of ending the impasse.
But talks are seemingly as cold as the temperatures nurses are facing nurses on the picket lines this week. A larger walk out has therefore been planned February 6 and 7.
This will come soon after thousands of rail workers, teachers and civil servants also go on strike. In that week it will be disputes over pay and conditions that brings the country to a halt, rather than the ice.
According to organisers, the picket line outside of Whiston hospital yesterday was one of the largest, if not the largest, demonstration in the country. Nurses will be making their voice heard there again today, with broken morale, no work-life balance and no protection from a vicious cost of living crisis fuelling the frustration – not that you’d notice this among the resolute figures outside the facility.
Many nurses were there striking for the first time in their careers, including John Taylor, 58, a position he thought he’d never find himself in. He has been in the profession for the last 40 years, much of which has been spent in the A&E department.
But in the last three years he’s seen a deterioration in the level of care that can be given to patients as pressures and demands have intensified. Space for patients has become scarce, with fewer experienced hands on wards than ever before.
He told the ECHO: “It's demoralising and it's heartbreaking for staff to be treating patients on a corridor, to be examining patients on a corridor. [Patients can spend] 28-48 hours on a corridor waiting for a bed.
“You can't underestimate what that does to the morale of the staff who want to do their best and want to give their best, but they're being asked to do things that they shouldn't be asked to do. If it was wartime, you'd think that's [normal], but it's peacetime and it's not a civilised NHS service.”
The pressures nurses face is threatening a family legacy stretching four generations. “My great grandmother, grandmother and dad were all nurses,” Hazel told the ECHO, “but there won't be a fifth [generation].” The 43-year-old, who only wanted to give her first name, has been a nurse for the last 20 years, but she explained that she has signed up to retrain and hopes to be out of the profession by the end of the year.
Noting how many of her colleagues had to work overtime just so they could afford to strike, the mum of two said: “People are doing overtime to support their kids. They're missing out on family time because of the way things have gone.
“It’s sad that the [legacy] is coming to an end, but I have to deal with this generation. It's not good for my kids. They have to make it so people have the resources to do their job, the beds – they have to have the basics.”
This feeling of frustration was shared by John Cairns, 53, who started his medical career as a medic in the army in 1994 before transferring to nursing. He has served in Bosnia and Kosovo, but agrees with his colleague that the current plight hitting the NHS is of wartime proportions.
“You don't go into nursing to become rich,” John told the ECHO, “you do it to be able to contribute to society, benefit people, see people get better – it's a privilege.” But currently he said there was a clear lack of resources which harms staff and the “safety of patients.”
Similar to Hazel, Band 6 nurse AJ Proudler pointed to the demanding hours and responsibilities as a breaking point for many nurses. He said: “[New staff] are breaking down in tears because they can't afford the basics.
“They come into work on empty and still give everything. [Nurses] are having issues with their partners and end up breaking up and ending relationships because they're that stressed with work. They're taking on extra hours just because we haven't got the staff – we need to do overtime to keep the service running.”
Just before midday, RCN general secretary and chief executive Pat Cullen arrived at Whiston Hospital to support the striking nurses. Her appearance raised spirits and appeared to help shake off the hours of the cold many had faced.
Commenting on the turn out, she told the ECHO: “The PM and secretary of state need to take a strong look at the nurses standing on this picket line today. This shows the determination and courage of every single nurse.
“They've told me, right across the picket lines today, that they will keep going. They are determined to change the NHS, move it away from this crisis, and the only way we're going to do that is by paying these brilliant nurses a decent wage to keep them in the health service and recruit more nurses in.”
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