Nurses have gone on strike over pay and strained working conditions at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading.
Nurses and advocates from the Royal College of Nursing staged a protest outside the hospital as part of a national strike today (Thursday, December 15).
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) spoke to nurses at the protest.
Kelly a nurse in research and development raised a number of issues that nurses face, including being overburdened and concerns over patient safety.
She said: “Every single role within the NHS, whether you’re at the top or the bottom, you all do a little bit extra than what you’re advertised to do in your job role.
“Within that comes extra stress, extra workload, you’re doing a little bit more than what you’re paid and properly appreciated for.
“On top of that you’ve got lack of staff, there’s loads of vacancies that aren’t being filled, which has a knock-on effect.
“Many nurses on the frontline feel although they’re doing all that they still don’t get to give the care they want to give.”
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Another nurse the LDRS spoke to said she has worked as a nurse for 15 years and this is the first time she has ever been on strike.
Menawhile, Laura Gibson said: “Essentially it’s about making sure the hospitals are manned safely.
“At the moment we have a shortfall of nurses to be in hospitals take care of patients, and because of the rise in the cost of living, and the fact that pay isn’t keeping up with inflation we’re losing a lot of very competent and highly skilled nurses and we’re also not recruiting.”
Nurses said former colleagues have moved to private healthcare companies or sought different careers altogether.
When asked why the protest was held in Craven Road rather than the hospital’s grand entrance in London Road, Laura said: “Obviously we want to keep to guidelines and disrupt any processes, we don’t want to cause any issues to the hospital itself, so it was allocated that Craven Road would be the place we would come to.”
The less prominent location didn’t stop drivers tooting their car horns in support of the protestors.
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The protest was attended by Pat Cullen, general secretary & chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing.
Speaking to the LDRS, Pat said: “I’m here today to be amongst the most wonderful people in the world, and that is our nurses, who are taking action outside their hospitals on behalf of their patients and on behalf of the profession asking this Government to listen to them and to give them a decent wage.”
The Royal College of Nursing union has called on Steve Barclay MP, the secretary of state for health and adult social care (Conservative, North East Cambridgeshire) to negotiate better pay for nurses and encourage more people to apply for the profession.
The protest in Reading took place as part of the biggest nursing strike in NHS history with walkouts across the country.
Nurses said that they are striking ‘in shifts’ to make sure patients are properly cared for.
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