Liverpool nurse challenges MPs to spend a day on frontline as nurse strike continues
A nurse on the picket line outside the Liverpool Royal Hospital has challenged MPs to spend a day working with them.
Those on other picket lines across Merseyside say staff shortages mean patients are being neglected, with low salaries even forcing some to turn to food banks to feed their children.
Lewis Lane-Holmes, who works in A&E, joined the national strike by nurses on Thursday 15 December.
The action is the biggest walkout ever in the NHS, and is in a row over pay.
Lewis said: "The MPs that are making the decisions get their pay rise year on year on year, they get meals subsidised, so why is there no money for the people who are saving lives?
"I would challenge them to come and spend the day with us and see what we actually do and then tell us that we don't deserve what we're asking for."
Video report from Granada Reports correspondent Ann O'Connor
Nurses also joined the picket, outside Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool, from 7:30am, as part of the biggest ever national nurses strike.
Many were holding placards with slogans such as "Short staffing costs lives", "You clapped for us, now act for us" and "If nurses are out here, there’s something wrong in there".
Liverpool staff nurse Kelly Hopkins, 46, who has been a nurse for 25 years, says some patients were being left "lying in their own waste" due to the low levels of staffing.
She said: “I have connections with the food bank and there are more and more nurses using the food bank, which is just not acceptable.
“They’re coming in to work to care for other people and no-one’s caring for them.
“They’re having to use food banks, they’re coming in cold, they’re going without food to feed their children, it’s just crazy.”
She said she was motivated to strike over safe staffing levels, adding there are thousands of job vacancies across the NHS, but it is struggling to attract new workers.
"The wards are understaffed, which is affecting patient care," she said.
"I came into nursing to give good nursing care and we can’t give it because there’s not enough of it.
"Patients aren’t getting their teeth brushed, they’re lying in their own waste because there aren’t enough of us, we can’t split ourselves in two, especially on the wards.
"Unless we stand up and say something, it’s just going to get worse."
Pamela Jones, another nurse on the picket line, said "I’m striking today because I’ve been nursing for 32 years; within those 32 years the changes have been astronomical.
"The public need to understand the pressures that everyone’s under.
"You’ve only got to come into A&E and see the queues, there’s no beds.
"We want to save our NHS, we don’t want it to go, and I think this is the way forward, it’s the only way we can put our point across.
"We don’t want to be here. I was really torn about striking because it’s not something I’ve ever, ever thought in my lifetime I’d ever had to do, but yet the Government has pushed us to this.
"I hope the Government listens, because none of us want to be here, we just want a fair pay rise."
Nurses at Aintree say they have received "fantastic support from passing drivers", with Alan Gibbon, who is on the picket line, taking to social media to say it was "good-natured and determined".
Nurses across Merseyside are the only ones in the North West taking part in the first wave of strikes in December, after other NHS trusts did not get enough votes to join the strike action.
Hospitals affected by strike action on 15 December:
Aintree Hospital: 07:30 - 19:30
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital: 08:00 - 20:00
Ashworth Hospital: 07:00 - 20:00
Broadgreen Hospital: 07:30 - 19:30
Clatterbridge Cancer Centre (Liverpool): 08:00 - 20:00
Liverpool Women’s Hospital: 07:00 - 19:00
Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital: 07:00 - 19:00
Old Swan Walk-in Centre: 07:00 -20:00
Royal Liverpool Hospital: 07:30 - 19:30
The Walton Centre: 07:30 - 19:30
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Teaching Foundation has issued a statement to say - due to the industrial action - A&E departments are very busy.
The Trust is asking people only to attend if they need to.
What will happen during the strikes?
Nurses are required by trade union statutes to provide life-sustaining care throughout the strikes.
This means some urgent cancer services, urgent tests and scans, and continuous care for vulnerable patients will be preserved alongside A&E and critical care.
However exact staffing numbers on strike days will be negotiated by local health bosses and union leaders.
Why are nurses striking?
The Royal College of Nursing is asking for a 19% pay rise, as it says below inflation increases are "compromising care" by making it hard to attract and keep nurses in the profession.
The government says the RCN's demand is unaffordable and that it has met independent recommendations on pay.
The second walkout by nurses is set to take place on 20 December.