NHS: Angered Nurses Warn MPs on Pay

Thousands of nurses from all over Britain have gathered in Westminster for the resumption of Parliament after the summer break to warn the Government thy could soon be taking unprecedented industrial action. Health Minister Jeremy Hunt was silent on Twitter where he usually makes his thoughts known.

The protest took place as Prime Minister Theresa May was facing a barrage of questions in the nearby House of Commons about the seven-year-old pay cap on public sector wages.

The often emotional stories of the nurses echoed around the Palace of Westminster from the large loudspeakers at the demonstration. Their common message was that if the Government did not “Scrap the Cap” their next move would be industrial action in the NHS, an extremely significant step for nurses.

Speakers took to the stage to share stories of how the prolonged pay squeeze had left many nurses living hand to mouth.Cecilia Anim, the president of the Royal College of Nursing, told the rally that she had a message “to the people next door”.

“For far too long our hard work, our skill, our dedication has been taken for granted by this government … for too long the lives of our friends and colleagues have been blighted. And why? Because our pay has been cut,” she said.

Other nurses in the crowd, from those just starting out on their careers to others with more experience, told how they were struggling to cope at work because of staff shortages, and at home because of the pay restraint.

Claire Holmes, a nurse in Romford, Essex, who attended the rally with her husband and two children, enthusiastically joined in with a chant of “scrap the cap”. She said her monthly salary lasted barely two weeks.

“My daughter says she wants to become a nurse like Mummy, but I worry,” she said. “I wouldn’t encourage other people to go into nursing, which is a shame because the job itself is brilliant but I’ve come to the conclusion we’ll never own our own home, or be able to go on a family holiday.”

Four months ago, more than 50,000 members of the RCN voted in a poll on pay, with eight out of 10 saying they were prepared to go on strike if the pay cap was not lifted.

Dressed in her scrubs, Emily Meins, a senior staff nurse at St Thomas’s who in March was involved in the response to the terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge, said it would be hard for nurses to go strike. “Anything that puts patients at risk is obviously something that goes contrary to my core values but it’s got to the stage where the Government aren’t listening and we’ve got to do something different,” she said.

Inside the Commons, Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn baited the Prime Minister with a series of questions. He urged May to “see sense” and scrap the 1% public sector pay cap. Corbyn warned that “warm words do not pay food bills” in the pair’s often-heated exchanges during the first session of Prime Minister’s Questions since the summer recess.

Corbyn taunted the PM by telling her that “poor pay means experienced staff are leaving“ and fewer were training to become nurses.

“There’s already a shortage of 40,000 nurses across the UK,” he said. “Will the Prime Minister please see sense and end the public sector pay cap and ensure our NHS staff are properly paid?”

May tried to turn the tables on Corbyn by asking how he would fund his proposals. The Labour leader shot back a reference to May’s deal with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland to shore up her minority government, noting that that “the Prime Minister had no problems finding £1bn to please the DUP — no problems whatsoever.”

“NHS staff are 14% worse off than they were seven years ago. Are you really happy that NHS staff use food banks?”

Outside Parliament, Cambridge NHS nurse George Stephen, 37, whose wife also works as a nurse, said Ministers had no idea of the real cost of the pay cap. “We haven’t seen a pay increase in years and inflation has significantly increased, as has the cost of living,” he said. “It makes it hard to sustain a good quality of life so nurses are leaving the profession in droves.”

 

by Bob Graham

 

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