Nurses strike: Royal College of Nursing agrees to supply some staff during bank holiday walkout
The RCN has granted exemptions to Great Ormond Street Hospital during the bank holiday nursing strike, in an apparent U-turn on its decision to refuse derogations
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is working with health leaders to provide some staff during its bank holiday strike, as hospitals including Great Ormond Street issued warnings over patient safety.
The RCN, which is holding a strike from 8pm on Sunday until 11.59pm on Monday evening, previously said it will not agree to derogations - broad areas of care where unions agree to provide staffing during industrial action.
Consequently, nurses in intensive care, A&E and cancer care will be on strike.
However, in a new development, it has agreed with NHS England that "safety critical mitigations may be required for a period to maintain safe patient care".
It comes as Great Ormond Street Hospital, in London, warned that it had "serious concerns over safely staffing the hospital" during the strike.
The world-renowned children's hospital said it has declared a business continuity incident, adding that wards will not be able to be staffed to usual levels.
RCN leader Pat Cullen said, on Saturday, that Great Ormond Street Hospital has been granted exemptions to ease the pressure on its services during the strike.
She added any suggestion that mitigations were not being put in place were "factually incorrect".
Meanwhile, the RCN said some "safety critical mitigations" were being agreed in advance with individual NHS organisations, and the union plans to post these on the RCN website by region.
Information from the RCN said: "Once the RCN has approved a safety critical mitigation, a local trust will contact nursing staff and seek their return to work.
"The RCN will also post to its website that the safety critical mitigation has been agreed so that it is easy for members to verify it.
"Where a mitigation has been confirmed, members should return to work to protect patient safety."
An RCN spokeswoman said: "There are no entire exemptions seen across the country.
"But we are taking reasonable and clinically urgent mitigations to protect life and limb as everybody would expect."
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The spokeswoman added: "It is painfully clear the NHS cannot cope without its nursing staff. If the government treated them fairly, this sorry situation would be finished.
"Nurses are intensifying the action because the strike so far has not produced a good enough offer from ministers - too valuable to strike but not valued enough to pay fairly.
"Nursing staff will always make sure life and limb care is protected and the NHS acknowledges the RCN is agreeing mitigations on request."
As the NHS prepares to cope with the strike, NHS England is urging the public to use the health service wisely.
The organisation said emergency and urgent care would remain the priority, with people asked to use other services such as pharmacies and 111 where possible.
Nurses make up a quarter of NHS staff and are the biggest proportion of the health service workforce.
NHS England warned that staffing levels for some areas of the country will be "exceptionally low, lower than on previous strike days".
The NHS's deputy chief nurse, Charlotte McArdle, said "there is likely to be significant impact upon local services over the bank holiday weekend".
She added: "We are now entering the sixth month of industrial action across the NHS and this has a cumulative impact on staff who have gone above and beyond to maintain safe patient services during an incredibly challenging period.
"We acknowledge that every appointment postponed has an impact on the lives of individuals and their families and creates further pressure on services and on an already tired workforce."
NHS England said the number of rescheduled appointments due to strike action is set to hit half a million next week.
A High Court judge ruled on Thursday it would be unlawful for the RCN strike to continue into Tuesday as originally planned, meaning it will now end just before midnight on Monday.
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