NURSES have been pushed to breaking point by a government that has delayed two paltry pay rises, even though they risked their lives during the pandemic. Years of 0 per cent or just over 1 per cent pay rises means that the highest basic hourly rate a band five nurse receives is £14.21 an hour.

GMB recently supported Twickenham refuse drivers to secure £16.10 an hour. What this victory shows is that pay is political, and when workers get properly organised in trade unions, they can win more.

Too many nurses are leaving the NHS because of deteriorating pay and conditions, and there is now a staggering 47,000 vacancy rate that NHS trusts are struggling to fill.

The constant demands to “do more with less” are a grinding and demoralising experience for front-line staff, but not for the senior NHS business managers on big salaries.

Patients and relatives are left bewildered by the tangled web of services with fancy names that promise a lot but deliver so little. The only consistency left in the NHS is the betrayal of clinical staff on pay and conditions — and patients on accessibility and safety of services.  

Nurses are saying enough is enough because the state of the NHS is not their fault. Guilt has been loaded onto individual nurses for a staffing crisis that they have not created. When things go wrong, nurses find their careers under threat — while the profiteers keep cashing in.

By going on strike, nurses will put the responsibility for patient safety right back into the hands of the CEOs and government, where it belongs. They have a fighting chance to force through positive changes that will benefit themselves and patients over the longer term.

The top priority of any trade union is to ensure that strikes are impactful, so that the workers win. It is the NHS unions who should dictate the level of service cover, because they represent the experts, not management who will manipulate concerns for their own ends.

During the last pay and pensions strike, staff were confused over the messaging on exemptions from strike action, and too many did not participate in the strike as a direct result. Union reps need to play the major part in controlling strike action for their wards, departments, and community teams.  

If staff can safely take time off at Christmas and safe services can operate, the same rules can be applied on an NHS strike day. The exemptions from strike action should be for life and limb cover, to allow every other clinician to be out on strike, fighting for the survival of the NHS.  

It is important to recognise that we are all just a hair’s breadth away from requiring expensive health insurance, as the private health companies wait on the sidelines for even more staff to leave and for NHS services to fail completely. If we fail to support striking nurses, the threat of being forced to pay for private healthcare will become a reality for everyone in this country.

NHS staff are making the difficult decision to go out on strike because the class war being instigated against them and their patients is relentless. If nurses walk out on strike in large numbers, it could be a turning point in the battle to protect the NHS.  

Nurses have industrial leverage, and if they can stand up to the bullying and emotional manipulation, they can transform themselves into one of the most powerful groups of workers in the country. Nurses must push to deliver on their strike mandate and ensure they win, not just for themselves but for all of us. And it is the duty of anyone who cares about the founding principles of the NHS to support them.

Helen O’Connor is GMB Southern regional organiser.