WHEN we embarked on our student nurse training in the Whittington hospital, the June 90 set enjoyed conditions that are a distant dream for today’s student nurses. 

The majority of us were just out of secondary school, so we leaped at the chance of gaining independence alongside the prospect of getting a career under our belts at a young age.

The attractive training package which included subsidised accommodation, subsidised meals and a modest salary for personal expenses, meant that the hospital had no problem recruiting student nurses or filling staffing vacancies with nurses who were loyal to the hospital. 

The dropout rate was low and when we qualified we were all employed somewhere in the hospital workforce by the time we were in our early twenties. 

The salary of a newly qualified nurse was decent and more so as we moved up the scale and secured promotions. Many of the nurses who trained alongside me are still practising to this day.

The school of nursing was on the hospital site and there was absolutely no waste. Old beds and IV drips were sent over to the nursing school to be used as part of our training. 

The tutors joined students on the wards and taught us the practicalities of nursing tasks including aseptic technique, care planning, observations and the wards were a supportive environment and far safer for patients. 

The domestics and porters were all employed in-house on full NHS pay and conditions, there was no two-tier workforce and a career path was open if they wished to take up training as clinical staff. 

Co-operation between wards, departments and sites in the hospital ensured efficiency, safety and that patients were put first.

Even though the workload was high, as is to be expected in a busy London teaching hospital, student nurses developed solidarity because we shared living quarters alongside our experiences as we went through our training. 

The project 2000 university-based nursing degrees and diplomas reached the Whittington hospital in the mid-90s and there was much fanfare about how nursing was going to elevated as a profession. 

Instead of a salary, student nurses would now receive a means-tested bursary, but this too was removed for good by 2016. 

The radical training changes marked the start of a staggering erosion in student nurse conditions that few could have foreseen at the time. 

The slow creep of damaging change extended right across the entire NHS with a rise in the use of PFIs and outsourcing. 

Managers with no experience of the NHS were drafted in to run things, which marked the end of highly experienced clinical personnel running hospitals in the interests of patients.

Over the last 30 years things have now degenerated to the point that student nurses pay thousands for training, provide hard labour for free on wards and travel miles to placements incurring further travel costs. 

According to the Nursing Standard, the student nurse dropout rate had increased to one in every four by 2020. 

The salary of a registered nurse was also cut to the bone via a continuous series of 0 per cent and 1 per cent pay “uplifts.” The nurse “bank” system, initially welcomed by nurses, marked the end of  higher payments for working overtime. 

Every last additional payment registered nurses could get for car usage, mufti allowance, psychiatric lead etc were all slowly removed.  

The nursing profession is now mired in a deep crisis and it has become very difficult to recruit or retain experienced nurses. 

Skilled and experienced nurses questioned why salaries were falling as they were taking on more complex responsibilities, additional training and had accumulated years of experience. 

A further kick in the teeth was delivered  in the 2018 NHS pay deal and the recent 3 per cent pay offer means that nurses will stay in the ranks of highly skilled but low-paid workers for years to come.  

The constant restructuring of NHS services and the demands to do far more with far less are making the working lives of all NHS staff unbearable. 

As cuts and privatisation bite and conditions plummet alongside salaries, it is simply staggering that nurses continue to accept false arguments that their own wages, terms and conditions are irrelevant or a secondary issue.

While the pandemic worsened, the crisis in the nursing profession a glimmer of hope also started to emerge when the grassroots NHSPay15 campaign was formed. 

Finally demoralised and exhausted nurses started to get angry and this played out in huge protests held up and down the country that unions like my own supported. 

It was very inspiring to see this new generation of young nurses standing up for themselves, their profession and their patients. 

They also started to ask searching questions and make demands on all of the health trade unions for the first time in decades.

This level of collective anger channelled into activism has not been seen for decades. If we are serious about having a National Health Service in this country in years to come, militant activity centred around the needs of staff like nurses will become increasingly important because there is no NHS without them. 

Trade unions will have to work far harder to engage nurses, listen to them and form winning campaigns around their demands. Trade union activity supported by communities and the key NHS campaigns will become vital in the battle to protect the NHS for patients. 

Failing to challenge restructuring, the colossal spending on the private sector, new buildings and tech at the expense of investing in the pay, terms and conditions of the NHS workforce is no longer an option. 

There is no question that nurses have been sold a constant and steady stream of lies that have caused their pay and conditions to plummet. 

They will need do everything they can to protect what is left, but also to make the necessary demands to claw back everything they have lost over the last three decades of rampant cuts and privatisation.

Helen O’Connor is GMB Southern regional organiser.