On Saturday 8th August, thousands of NHS workers demanded for fair pay in over 30 planned protest marches across the UK. These marches were organised in light of the government announcement last month about a marginal pay rise for the NHS doctors. Now, the nurses, midwives and other staff is urging the government for the recognition of their work on the Covid-19 frontlines.
In London, protesters made their way along Whitehall towards Downing Street with a blue banner reading, “End NHS pay inequality, together we win.” Outside No 10, they shouted, “Boris Johnson hear us shout, pay us properly or get out.” Other protests were organised in Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Cardiff among others.
Unions have now described the Government’s exclusion of the other workforce from pay rise as “the final straw” after cuts of thousands of pounds to nurses pay since 2010 due to a failure to raise wages with inflation.
Dave Carr, a critical care nurse at St Thomas’ hospital in London – where Boris Johnson was treated in ICU for coronavirus– was protesting in London.
In a statement to The Guardian, he said, “Working during the coronavirus crisis was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. There’s a lot of PTSD around among colleagues and many are worried about the possibility of a second wave. We can’t do the job any more. We had to shut down the NHS to fight Covid-19 and now we’re expected to just turn it back on. We’re absolutely on our knees. And on top of it they give 900,000 public sector workers a pay rise, and I haven’t got a problem with that, but they carve us out. I’m absolutely fuming.”
A recent survey by the Royal College of Nursing of 42,000 nursing staff showed that 36% were considering leaving the profession, with most citing pay as a factor. The number of healthcare workers who have died due to Covid-19 had reached 200 until the end of May and more than six in 10 of the victims were from BAME backgrounds.
Claudia Webbe, MP for Leicester East had written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock urging the government to include health workers in the recent public sector wage increase. In her letter, she wrote,
“This crisis has shown that the people who really matter and keep our society ticking are not billionaires and the super-rich, but nurses, carers, cleaners, checkout attendants and many more essential frontline workers. This must be reflected with a significant restructuring of our economy along the lines of justice, with pay-rises for those who we clearly cannot live without.
“We can no longer live in a society where health workers are underpaid, frontline workers are undervalued or our NHS is starved of funding.”
In the meantime, on Monday 10th August, the government unveiled funding of up to £172m for thousands more apprentice nurses in England. The Department of Health and Social Care said the money will allow healthcare employers to take on up to 2,000 nursing degree apprentices every year over the next four years.
