The Unison, Unite, GMB and Royal College of Midwives strikes on 13th October were well supported as was the radiographers' strike on 20th October. Despite Hunt's refusal to budge, mood on the picket lines was buoyant with moving speeches, especially from the groups new to striking like the midwives, about how mistreated and exploited they feel. Radiographers made excellent use of their skeleton motifs.
Management and government cannot ignore how the more and more overt and shameless 'squeezing' of staff to produce more and more will eventually lead to service failure. As experienced staff haemorrhage to better paid and less stressful jobs abroad, managers scrabble around competing with each other to attract nurses and other staff from less well off countries who need their own trained staff. Simon Stevens skirts round this in his Five Year Forward Look, but staff issues need to be addressed directly. Treating staff decently is not a luxury - it is essential to a caring service.
We are a grassroots movement comprising people from all walks of life who are, or will be affected by the government’s austerity measures and spending cuts to NHS Services across England. We also strongly oppose the creeping privatisation of the NHS by successive governments. Privatisation = Profit not Good Patient Care
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