As nurses prepare to strike, one Kettering General Hospital sister tells why she's taking action

As members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) prepare to strike on Thursday (December 15), one nurse has explained why she is taking action.

Rebecca Prendergast, a deputy sister at Kettering General Hospital (KGH) says her colleagues are at ‘breaking point’.

More than 300,000 NHS nursing staff were balloted at individual organisations rather than nationally as part of the RCN's biggest strike vote in its history.

On Thursday, RCN members will walk out at KGH – Northampton General Hospital staff voted against action.

She said: “There are so many reasons I have taken the decision to strike for better pay and conditions, and conditions are just as critical as pay at this point.

“The clinical skills and complexities of the job have grown ten fold since I qualified 28 years ago.

“A student nurse, now requiring a degree, leaves study with a £60,000 plus debt, thanks in part to this government dropping a training bursary they used to receive.

“There is a 20 to 50 per cent student nurse drop out rate nationally, and the fact there has been an average eight per cent pay drop for NHS workers in real terms in the last 12 years leaves students on the back foot the day they qualify.

“But as I said the overriding reason that most nurses are striking is conditions. We just can’t do the job we want to do and are trained for.

“Dangerous levels of staffing are now a daily reality and there is a desperate need to retain and attract staff to the NHS.

“There was a 25 per cent increase in the number of Registered Nurses that left their job in the last year compared to the previous year. Health Care Assistants have left in droves and are like gold dust now.

“Some operating theatres are not being used because there is not enough theatre staff to run those theatres, so operations are not being performed. There are vacancies in all areas of the NHS, more than 100,000 positions.

“Every shift there are staffing meetings where decisions are made to move nursing staff from an adequately staffed area to a dangerously staffed area to maintain safety, the quality of the care we want to give is now secondary to patient safety.

“Moving people to an unfamiliar understaffed area and being given responsibility for patients’ lives, massively affects the mental well-being of staff. Vulnerable patients are also not getting the care they should be and that nurses want to to give. We are at breaking point.

“No nurse wants to strike and it comes to something when highly professional, dedicated NHS nurses see that as the only option.

“To me, the Health Secretary shows contempt and complete disrespect for nurses to not even consider going into negotiations to prevent the strikes. His argument that it is nothing to do with them is ludicrous as it the government who make the ultimate decision on the NHS pay awards.

“Our voices are not being listened to so here we are. The government were warned by the RCN 12 years ago there would be 40,000 nurses vacancies and they did absolutely nothing. There are at least 100,000 vacancies in the NHS.

“Every year for the past 12 years we have been told they cannot afford to give NHS staff a pay rise to meet inflation. The RCN stated in their report to the government in 2021 that a 12.5 per cent pay rise for all NHS workers would have a net cost of just £0.82 billion.

“Compare that to the billions this government have spent on other contracts including the Nightingale Hospitals they couldn’t staff, failed Track and Trace, and faulty PPE.

"This is before we go onto the complete false economy of spending £3 billion pounds a year on agency nurses.”

This week following a meeting with Health Secretary Steve Barclay MP, RCN general secretary and chief executive, Pat Cullen, said: “The government was true to its word – they would not talk to me about pay.

“I needed to come out of this meeting with something serious to show nurses why they should not strike this week. Regrettably, they are not getting an extra penny.

“Ministers had too little to say and I had to speak at length about the unprecedented strength of feeling in the profession. I expressed my deep disappointment at the belligerence – they have closed their books and walked away.”

Kettering General Hospital RCN members will be joined by GMB members of East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) who have backed the national call for industrial action.

Strike action is planned to take place from Wednesday, December 21 at 6am to 6am on Thursday, December 22. A further 24-hour strike has been planned for Wednesday, December 28.

Despite action to be taken at KGH, Northamptonshire Health Foundation Trust and East Midlands Ambulance Service, Northampton General Hospital, "narrowly missed" the strict legal turnout thresholds required allowing staff to take action.

Ms Prendergast added: “The NHS is so important to me and we are heading very quickly towards losing it. Many areas of it are already being privatised and the companies that the NHS pay to provide the services are making profits for their shareholders. American Insurance Companies are waiting in the wings. If the public do not stand up now in supporting the staff, we will lose this service and that would be a catastrophe for this country.

“There has been so much damage done, the nursing and NHS staffing crisis will not be solved overnight but this is our way to highlight what is going on, some of the changes that need to be made and show the public how bad it is becoming. I really hope the public understand and support us in this.”