One year on, nurses in Bristol are still struggling after the historic strike by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which began 15 December 2022.
Members of the RCN in England, Wales and Northern Ireland staged their biggest-ever walkout over two days in a dispute over pay.
Staff from North Bristol NHS Trust, University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust took part. It was followed by further action throughout 2023.
At the time, the RCN said: “We’re campaigning for a pay rise to overcome years of real-terms pay cuts and to protect patient safety by allowing the NHS to recruit and retain the nursing staff it desperately needs.”
According to Steve Norman, a Bristol-based nurse, not much has changed since last year’s action: “The situation for nurses hasn’t really changed. It’s continued to get worse. More and more people are leaving the profession.
“Pay hasn’t continued to meet inflation and staffing numbers are still not good.”
Grace White, who is a staff nurse at the Emergency Department at Southmead Hospital, said there is also a reliance on using agency staff instead of permanently hiring.
She explained, “We’re not quite there yet. Things are better, but there’s still…a desperate need for nurses.
“It feels like there’s a lot of money going into agency staff. But equally, it does mean we have got more staff – the North Bristol [NHS] Trust [is] trying to keep us afloat by getting in agency nurses. I just don’t know how sustainable that is.”
According to an analysis by the RCN released this December, three-quarters of nursing jobs in NHS England could be filled if money was redirected to hiring permanent staff instead of agency. It added, “Cash spent on agencies could cover the salaries of 30,956 permanent full-time equivalent nurses paid at the top of a Band 5 salary (£34,581).”
The Royal College of Nursing is the world’s largest nursing union and professional body. It represents nearly half a million nurses, student nurses, midwives and nursing support workers in the UK and internationally.
