There's a nursing crisis in the NHS- so here is what I would do about it

Why lower funding for training and waste billions plugging the gaps recruiting abroad and on agencies?

- Emily Sheffield

BRITAIN is facing an era of strikes not seen for a generation. There are strikes every day until Christmas and during it. Most worryingly, The Royal College of Nursing strikes begin on December 15 at half of all NHS Trusts. The Royal College of Midwives opened a ballot last month, so more strikes are likely next year.

Within nursing, this is a crisis that has been building for years. Nurses are asking for a 19 per cent pay rise, the Government is offering four, an insulting offer to the thin red line of men and women holding our nation's health together. Nurses are in Band D of pay in the NHS, with a newly qualified nurse earning only £27,055, often rising to just £31,000, an amount that has fallen in real terms by eight per cent since 2010, fuelling shortages in this vital sector, with wages now hit by inflation.

Meanwhile, nursing agencies are being paid up to £2,500 to fill a shift. In the last financial year - in a pandemic - we spent £3 billion of the annual £12 billion bill for the NHS with agencies. Often, they are recruitng from hospital staff.

Agency pay rates were capped at 55 per cent above normal pay changed in March this year to 35 per cent - but often it is more as managers can go above in an emergency.