LOCAL nurses took part in this month’s strike action and picketed Frome Community Hospital, as part of their campaign for fair pay and safe staffing levels.
Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members joined with other members across the country on Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th February, to continue action in the first strike of its kind in NHS history.
The RCN says that strike action has been taken to “rectify the years of real-term pay cuts that are pushing people out of the nursing profession and putting patient safety at risk.”
RCN members in Frome who took strike action say that they’ve ‘never seen such a staffing crisis’ and called on the Government to enter into talks.
Reece Evans, who works in dementia support, spoke to Frome Times on the picket line. He said, “I’ve worked in the healthcare industry for over 33 years and I’ve never seen such a staffing crisis. The Government should sit down for a conversation at the very least. We don’t want to be out here on a day as cold as this; we’d much rather be looking after patients, but we need to make the point that the industry is on its knees and we need a solution so we can have more nurses in the future.”
Nurse practitioner and RCN stewarding representative, Victoria Marshall added, “We’re picketing today because we want safe staffing. There are 47,469 full-time nursing vacancies in England and most of this is because we can’t convince the youth to engage with what is such a skilled profession, as you can walk into most fast-food chains and be paid the same as a fully qualified nurse, who is also carrying student debt.
“If you pay nurses fairly, then you will fill the vacancies. We’re hopeful that the Government will at least enter into talks with us soon and discuss the situation, but that isn’t the case so far.”
Sally Robertson, staff nurse at Frome Minor Injury Unit said, “The most pressing concern is staff retention. We go to the effort of training students, who also pay £9,000 a year in tuition fees, but within two years of qualification, 52% of those students will have left the profession.
“We’re losing 40,000 qualified nurses a year; we’ve got less than that coming in and half of those are disappearing. Having 47,469 vacancies just in England is staggering. We don’t think of ourselves as heroes or angels – we are graduate professionals (most of us have Masters degrees) – we just want some respect from those that are paying us.”
Local people expressed their support of the strike action, with many cars beeping their horn as they drove past, as well as commenting on their support on the Frome Times Facebook page.
One comment says, “As a former nurse, I support your strike wholeheartedly. For years the government have been told about the inevitable shortage of qualified nurses, as numbers of students were cut, and qualified nurses undervalued and undermined as professionals, by a government who has no idea what low morale is doing to the NHS.
“The conditions that have resulted are unsafe and the public need to know that that is one of the reasons you are taking this stand. I salute you.”
For the first time in NHS history, nurses have been taking strike action, beginning with two days in December, two days in January and now, the latest strikes held this month.
