As Britain’s economy crumples under the cost of living crisis and waves of industrial action, any hope of a recovery in the near future is disheartened as workers in other sectors join the strikes demanding better pay and working conditions. NHS nurses, who staged the country’s largest ever strikes in the history of the healthcare system on 6 and 7 February, are the latest of these public sector workers to join the national walkouts.
Covid-19’s physical and mental strain on the industry has also pushed nurses away from public nursing into private work or even retirement, further increasing the pressure on the nurses who stayed back, and exacerbating the nursing shortage already plaguing the system.
It is undeniable that these issues are reverberating through student nurses as well, so much so that they are discouraging them from even considering the field. Student nurses have not been at the centre stage of the pay demands, but they are a necessary instrument to the debate as the UK’s nursing workforce of the future.
Farai Jerahuni is a 22 year old adult nursing student at Sheffield Hallam University. Her family’s close ties to nursing coaxed her into the discipline.
“A lot of people in my life do nursing. I have been influenced by them and want to keep it in the family,” she said.
“I get to see an unhealthy patient improve and being a part of their recovery and being able to help them is rewarding.”
Although her family inspired her nursing career, their experience had also cautioned her of the hectic schedule that has become a trend with nursing, especially after Covid-19.
Farai recalls her mum, an adult nurse herself, constantly hunched over the computer at half ten in the evening with the day’s work she’s brought home.
“Mum would quickly eat dinner with us and then jump on the computer to deal with her caseloads. Because of the staff shortage she would often take on late nights and extra shifts.
“She never verbalised that she was overworked but then she’s always been strong headed.”
Despite knowing the struggles that come with nursing, Farai is still determined to be a nurse, just perhaps not in the NHS.
“I want to start in the NHS because I’m guaranteed a job but I don’t think I’ll stay there. It scares me to think if I’ll be financially stable in this career. I’m thinking of going private because I’ve seen what it [being a public sector nurse] is doing to nurses.
“It’s a shame since I want to help people but then I also have to think about myself,” she said.
Marie Tauringana is 24 and studies mental health nursing at Sheffield Hallam University. Similar to Farai, her family also has a history in nursing and her reason to be a nurse is very personal.
“I did music during my undergrad, so the shift to nursing is very random.”
“I struggled with depression myself and during lockdown I realised I wanted to help others who are in the same position I was in. I think around one in four people go through mental health issues during their lifetime, so a lot of people need our support,” she explains.
Marie shares the sentiment of the picketers: “It’s frustrating that the government refuses to pay us a fair way despite relying on us. We are essential, but not treated like it.”
Organised by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), the union representing nurses in the UK, the nurses strike calls for a pay rise of 19% in line with inflation, although promises of a new pay offer, at a drastically smaller increase of 7%, in Wales meant the strikes there were prematurely called off.
Farai believes the nurses in Wales only agreed to the new offer because they were doubtful their demands would ever be met.
“Is it because they’re scared it’s the best they can get?
“Considering the state of the country I wouldn’t be confident the government would agree to just increase their salary,” she said.
Marie also points out that the £50 strike benefit the RCN offers isn’t enough to compensate for the hours not worked.
Yet, not everyone is easily pacified. Nurses elsewhere in the UK do not plan to back down as other sectors of the NHS, including ambulance staff, physiotherapists and possibly even intensive care and A&E staff join them.
So far the strikes have disrupted thousands of appointments and operations. Although RCN members reassure patients that there are plans in place to minimise the strikes’ impacts on them, it is inevitable that the delays to treatments and appointments will adversely affect patients.
“It’s hard to see the patients disadvantaged because of the strike because we do want to care about them. It’s in our profession to care. At the end of the day, it’s neither their fault or ours but the governments. It’s a difficult decision but us nurses just want to be paid,” said Marie.
“I never went into nursing for the money. If you decide to work in the NHS for the money you’re going to be disappointed,” she jokes.
“But if my salary doesn’t keep me out of the food bank, it isn’t enough, and I won’t be able to do this anymore.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has rejected the 19% pay rise, stating that it isn’t in the government’s means at the moment.
Farai thinks it’s unfortunate that the patients have to be collateral damage in the struggle but doesn’t see an alternative.
“It irritates British people to be kept waiting but you being inconvenienced just proves that you need us. If the government wants us to inconvenience patients at the expense of us nurses, I see no other way,” she said.
Both Farai’s and Marie’s half-hearted acknowledgement of the strike resonates with the nurses on the streets and the public that supports them. At a time where the economy is on the verge of collapse, the last thing anyone wants is further instability. But when the nation’s burnt out nurses are also about to crumple after years of carrying a system that neglected them, it cannot be avoided.
Despite being caregivers, nurses are not being given the pay and appreciation they have earned. It is not just them that suffer when they do not receive pay, but the country as a whole. In order for nurses to help others, they have to be helped too.
