If Sunak Doesn't Start Listening To Us, It'll Be The End Of The NHS

NURSES on the picket line had one goal in mind yesterday – save the NHS.

And while the Greater Manchester public loudly voiced their support through their car horns, frustration was rising on the picket lines that the government’s head is ‘buried in the sand’.

Both nurses and ambulance staff staged walkouts and the country braced for widespread disruption.

Nurses at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust went on strike just as they had done on two days last month.

Picket lines may not have been quite as busy today as they had been a month ago, as nurses balance getting their point across with protecting their pay, but they were still in fine voice as anger grows at a government apparently unwilling to talk.

Kat Sanderson, a nurse of 20 years leading the picket line at Tameside General Hospital, said: “They’ve just completely buried their head in the sand. If Rishi (Sunak) doesn’t start listening to us it’ll be the end of the NHS. If he doesn’t want that on his CV then he needs to end this.

“It’s like a battlefield on the wards, you can’t care properly for anyone at all anymore. Lives are now being lost because of years of underinvestment and lack of staff. The whole system needs fixing.”

Dawn Turner, holding a banner and placard with Kat, said: “It’s just constant putting out of fires, our backs are always against the wall and the lack of staff is a big issue.”