Nurses in Dorset begin two-day strike as disputes over pay continue
Saving lives in the day, eating dinner from a food bank in the night
Nurses from Dorset County Hospital (DCH) are carrying out a two-day strike in a continued row over pay.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has demanded a pay increase of 5% above inflation but government officials have refused to give public sector workers “significant” pay rises because of inflation.
James Merrill, a senior regional officer at the RCN, said: “when nurses are going to food banks then there’s something wrong with the system.”
Daniel Hull, a clinical specialist at DCH, said: “We’ve had a pay cut which equates to working one day for free over every five days.” Meanwhile, according to Daniel, private healthcare professionals have apparently seen a pay rise of 6.6%.
Nurses at the strikes told us they could earn more "stacking shelves in a supermarket” than working as a nurse.
Lucy Walton, an orthopaedic nurse at the DCH, explained her situation: “Over the last 10 to 15 years, my wage has remained static so irrespective of the cost of living going up, my mortgage going up, my bills going up, my salary hasn’t.”
“I have less available income to live, to have a life, to be able to de-stress and socialise. We don’t have money for that anymore, that’s the stage we’re at.”
Lucy isn’t the only one struggling with the rising cost of living. Thousands of NHS workers from the 55 NHS trusts in England striking today are also facing financial instability.
Even Daniel Hull, who was standing 10ft to her left, explained his struggle: “we have two young kids, a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old, and we find it very difficult to pay for simple things like fuel to come to work. It’s just very hard.”
Daniel and his wife are both nurses but they, like many others, feel undervalued. He said: “By not giving sufficient pay to nurses, it makes them feel devalued, less motivated and that can affect patient care as well.
“The reason I got into nursing was to help people and I don’t feel at this time I have been able to do that properly because of the unsafe staffing levels.”
All the nurses we spoke to today waxed lyrical about their passion for the industry and their desire to help those in need. Carrie Ward said: “We love our job and it’s still a vocation for me. However, vocations don’t pay the bills."
NHS staff are more understaffed and overworked than ever before. There has been a rise in the number of patients but a reduction in the number of young nurses coming into the industry.
Lucy said: “Once student nurses realise the amount of money they are making and how much that salary is worth in real terms, they step away before they even start so we’ve got people leaving in their first year or not even getting the qualification.”
Charlotte Herring has been a nurse for five years, including her training, and she too noticed the alarming shortages in young nurses: “The dropout rate in my cohort at university was huge, I think we lost over 50% of students by the end of the degree.”
Nurses are urging the government to “sit at the table and talk to the RCN about pay” otherwise further industrial action will continue to take place. With dates on February 6th and 7th already scheduled.
Daniel Hull said: “Nurses need to be valued by the government and I don’t feel like the government is doing that at this time. They clapped us during the pandemic but it feels like were getting slapped in the face now.”