Santa joins the picket line [Simon Lamrock]

NHS nurses at the country’s leading children’s hospital walked out on strike today after ministers refused to reopen pay talks with the unions.

The Great Ormond Street Hospital workers chanted “fair pay for nurses” on a picket line outside the main entrance in Bloomsbury.

The Royal College of Nursing union, which is asking for a 19 per cent pay rise, said it had been “left with no choice” to call the strike after ministers refused to reopen pay talks.

Speaking at the picket line, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “Strike action is never easy to decide on and never easy to take. These are desperate times in the National Health Service.

“There are unbelievable levels of stress. Many are simply leaving the health service all together. This is a chaotic and disastrous situation.

“Rishi Sunak says we cannot afford the nurses’ pay demand. He’s wrong in absolutely every way. He signed off the £35billion bill to Serco for a failed track and trace system. He is the one that allowed the privatisation of so much in the NHS.

“He has restored the bankers’ bonuses and cut taxes for the richest in our society. He is now saying public sector workers who are taking strike action are personally responsible for the lack of service.

“No!

“The buck stops with the government. They have failed to fund the NHS. They have failed to tax the richest in this country and they are residing over redistribution of wealth and power to the very richest in society.”

Fair pay campaigners support the nurses [Simon Lamrock]

The RCN members at GOSH had met the required threshold during a nation-wide ballot for industrial action.

It led to walkouts today (Thursday) at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust – which runs St Mary’s in Paddington – Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust, the Royal Marsden and the North Central London Integrated Care Board, which provides community nursing in Camden and Islington.

But it was business as usual at all other London trusts and hospitals  – including the Royal Free, Whittington and University College London hospitals – where the RCN did not reach the required 50 percent threshold among members.

Under trade union laws, the RCN has to ensure life-preserving care continues during the 12-hour strike.

Nurses: overworked and underpaid [Simon Lamrock]

The general secretary of the union Pat Cullen had called on the government to do the decent thing and resolve the dispute before the end of the year.

She had said: “We need to stand up for our health service, we need to find a way of addressing those over seven million people that are sitting on waiting lists, and how are we going to do that?

“By making sure we have got the nurses to look after our patients, not with 50,000 vacant posts, and with it increasing day by day,” she said.

In a statement, health minister Maria Caulfield, a former nurse, accepted “it is difficult” living on a nurse’s wage, but said that a 19 percent pay rise “is an unrealistic ask”.