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- Medics picketed outside hospitals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
- Only a Christmas Day level of service was provided at dozens of hospitals
- READ MORE: UK’s top nurse joins 100k medics in NHS’s biggest ever strikes
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Up to 100,000 nurses walked out on their jobs today in the NHS’s biggest ever strike over pay.
Royal College of Nursing (RCN) medics braved -8C temperatures and snow to bolster picket lines outside ailing hospitals in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Only a Christmas Day level of service was provided at dozens of affected hospitals, triggering huge disruption across the country and cancelling tens of thousands of appointments and ops.
It came as fresh health service data today showed patients are experiencing record ambulance handover delay times, while hospitals are also being blighted by a surge in winter viruses.
Panic around the growing outbreak of Strep A infections in children is piling yet more pressure on the health service.
Pat Cullen, the RCN’s boss, has insisted nurses that nurses are not ‘greedy people’ and just need to ‘make ends meet’.
Dame Ruth May, chief nursing officer for England, lent her support to the strikers outside a London hospital.
Rail union boss Mick Lynch, whose wife is a nurse, also attended the series of strikes, as did former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and presenter Paddy McGuinness.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay, however, avoided striking medics. Visiting a hospital that did not back action, he remained adamant that the Government wouldn’t meet the RCN’s inflation-busting pay demands.
The row is over pay and working conditions, with the RCN demanding a pay rise 5 per cent above RPI inflation — equivalent to a 19 per cent boost.
However, it has indicated it would accept a lower offer.
The Government has so far refused to negotiate on salaries, sticking with its offer of around 4 per cent, or £1,400, which is backed by its independent NHS Pay Review Body.
But the union says the system, which was set up under Margaret Thatcher, is ‘out of date’ and ‘does not work for nurses’.
NEWCASTLE: Members of the RCN on the picket line outside Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle
The Royal College of Nursing has pledged industrial action on December 15 and 20
This map shows the hospitals where the Royal College of Nursing will hold its first strikes over pay on Thursday 15 and Tuesday 20 December
This graph shows the Royal College of Nursing’s demands for a 5 per cent above inflation pay rise for the bands covered by its membership which includes healthcare assistants and nurses. Estimates based on NHS Employers data
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