The CLP talks to former RCN Rep Christina Green about the state of the NHS – and why we should all support the Nurses strike.

Christina Green retired seven years ago having worked for the NHS for her entire career. “It’s all I ever wanted to do,” she says. Working as a specialist nurse, her time at the NHS included running the first dedicated HIV ward in a District General Hospital in Ealing.

Christina explains that the RCN has always been against strike action and that the recent vote shows the extent to which its hand was forced by the unsustainable conditions in which nurses are now being asked to work. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” she says. “No nurse wants to go on strike so, for the RCN to do that is amazing and shows just how desperate the situation is.” However, she adds that, “It won’t be a case of ‘everybody out’ – those on strike won’t be in A&E or the Intensive Care Units.”

Speaking on Newsnight last week, the RCA general secretary Pat Cullen described visiting a hospital in which a ward of 40 patients was being looked after by a single nurse, far lower than the staffing levels that would be agreed during strike action. Therefore, it’s highly likely that patient safety will actually improve during strike action, such is the depleted state of the NHS today

Christina explains that the reason these nurses have voted to take industrial action is to highlight how unsafe working conditions have become – both for nurses and their patients – with staffing levels far short of what is needed. “Today, you might get two nurses and a healthcare assistant on a ward – and that simply isn’t enough. Nurses are given 12-hour shifts and many senior staff don’t feel able to take breaks – I lived on black coffee to keep going. And you don’t leave on time – if there’s an emergency, you stay on and that could be an extra two hours. People are absolutely worn down due to poor staffing levels. You come off shift and say, ‘I just can’t do it again’.”

The end result, she says, is that nurses are leaving the profession because of the stress involved. Her experience confirms the findings of a recent Nuffield Trust report which found that nurses are leaving the profession in record numbers – over 40,000 people left the nursing register in the last year and there is a total of 47,000 unfilled posts across the NHS in England, making a mockery of the government’s stated intention of hiring 50,000 new nurses by the end of the current parliament. “They all want to leave – they are frustrated because they can’t give the care they want to. It’s best effort, not best.”

Christina believes that nurses’ demands for a 17% pay rise are justified. “They’ve been given one percent pay increases for years and their wages have fallen way behind other professions like teaching or the Police. They feel really hurt – people were standing on the street applauding them during Covid but now those sacrifices have been forgotten. The government has relied on the goodwill of doctors, nurses and Healthcare assistants but now we have to say that enough is enough.”

Christina acknowledges that there isn’t a ‘silver bullet’ that will solve all the problems with our health service. But addressing the low pay in the profession is the only place to start: Poor staffing levels that lead to stress and diminished patient safety can only be addressed by retaining existing staff and encouraging new staff into the profession, something that simply won’t happen until salaries improve.

At a time when the government is saying that it can’t fund improved pay for nurses, it is deeply ironic that NHS bosses are paying agencies up to £2,500 to fill shifts. In total three billion pounds was spent with agencies last year and, overall, total NHS spending on private healthcare last year rose 27% to over £18 billion, money that could more usefully be invested in supporting our nurses.

“The government needs to get around the table and talk to us,” says Christina. “We’re not angels. We’re professionals that have worked hard for our qualifications and we need to be rewarded as such.”

This is a battle not just for our nurses but for the future of our NHS.