Councillors, from left: Phil Graham, Nurullah Turan, Kaya Comer-Schwartz and Hannah McHugh

A “HEARTBROKEN” nurse who has worked for the NHS for more than 10 years called on people to be more alarmed at the “chaotic” state of an underfunded health service.

The nurse, who did not want to be named for fear of repercussions in her job, said she held the government accountable for the crisis which last month saw the longest ambulance response times in history and lengthy patient waits in accident and emergency.

Describing what she sees from day to day, the Islington-based nurse said: “Hospitals have closed down theatres temporarily because we don’t have the staff. It fills me with anxiety going into work every day because I never know what I’m walking into.

“I don’t know the staffing levels or who’s going to leave next. It’s unpredictable. It’s chaotic. There’s been no tangible government plan or route out of this mess provided and we appear to be going into it worse every day.”

She said her team had shrunk by roughly a quarter due to unfilled vacancies and warned that as a result patient lists will continue to grow – and this will lead to increased death rates.

“Vulnerable people won’t be protected,” she said, adding that while “more affluent” people will turn to private healthcare, poorer people will be left in a “two-tier healthcare system”.

She herself was forced to go private recently, because she “couldn’t be seen in a reasonable amount of time”.

“Hospitals are a very dangerous place right now,” she added. “With such poor staffing levels we don’t have time to follow proper procedures and that’s becoming standard for us all, whether you’re a doctor, a nurse, or a radiographer.”

Hospital staff on the picket line at UCLH on Wednesday

Within her own department, wait times for so-called emergency scans have risen from one month to between four and six months. Nationally, roughly one in ten people are on waiting lists.

“Are the government forcing the general public into a place where they will accept private healthcare?,” the nurse said.

“How much of this is accidental and how much is purposeful planning? How can we be in these dire straits?”

The nurse warned that roughly a third of her colleagues had left in the past year – “frustrated and burnt out because we can’t do the job any longer to a safe standard”, but also because private hospitals offer attractive pay rise and perks such as gym membership.

According to figures released by the British Medical Association just under one in six nursing posts is unfilled, with almost 50,000 vacant posts.

The BMA said nursing vacancies represented more than one tenth of all NHS vacancies and added: “High vacancies create a vicious cycle: shortages produce environments of chronic stress, which increase pressure on existing staff, and in turn encourage higher turnover and absence.”

Islington South MP Emily Thornberry, speak­ing to ITV’s Good Morning Britain last week, would not say whether Labour would give nurses a pay rise, but “promised” they would “double” the size of the NHS workforce.

She said: “It isn’t just about pay. It is also about their working conditions. They are exhausted and frankly tearful and they’re being exploited and used and abused and it’s just not good enough. Whether you work in the NHS or whether you’re one of the 600,000 who waited for more than four hours in A&E in August, you know there aren’t enough people in the NHS. So we have a plan to double the size of the workforce – we’ve also shown how we’d pay for that.”

Prime minister Rishi Sunak told the House of Commons this week that his government was “rapidly implementing measures to improve the delivery of ambulance times and, indeed, urgent and emergency care”.

Nurses feel empowered by speaking out during historic national strike

Emma Ings and Emma Ferguson

NURSES told the Tribune they felt empowered and like they had a voice for the first time thanks to strike action against the government.

Around 300 nursing staff at University College London Hospitals walked out on Wednesday as part of historic national industrial action – the first ever called by the Royal College of Nursing union – over poverty pay and working conditions that are putting patients’ lives at risk.

They lined the steps with placards in a lively protest, whooping at buses and vans beeping support.

Cancer ward nurse Emma Ings, who has worked at UCH since the 1990s, said: “I believe in UCH so passionately. It’s a really, really great place and it’s just a wonderful sight to see everyone outside the hospital today.

“But for the first time in my life I have to say I wouldn’t recommend nursing as a profession.

“If my kids said to me, ‘Mum I want to do this’, I’d say I don’t think that’s such a good idea.

“Something has to change. We can’t go on seeing people exhausted and leaving the profession and crying and overworked and going off sick with stress.

She added: “Often, you get a 10-minute break in a 12-hour shift. That leads to compassion fatigue. Everyone has to have a break. But you can’t if you are working agency on all your days off.”

She said it cost her £30 to get into work as there were not enough affordable homes in London.

Ms Ings said: “I’m feeling empowered for the first time in a long time. It is always hard for us to walk out and leave our patients, who are still being looked after and cared for by colleagues.”

Cancer patients have been left with adequate staff during the strike under minimum level service agreements.

Nurse Emma Ferguson said: “The new nurses that are coming through are wiped out before they’ve begun. People are retiring early. They are leaving. They want out.

“It’s because the conditions are dreadful. We can’t provide care we want to provide. We are frightened we can’t keep people safe. There is no nursing care, it’s just keeping people alive at the moment.

“You have to live outside of London or in a flat with 10 people. I used to live in the nursing accommoda­tion round the corner from here. It just doesn’t exist any more.”