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Strike support materials
Please feel free to download our ‘I Stand with NHS Staff materials’ here. There’ll be posters, stickers, badges and much more to come so do check back soon for new material as it becomes available.
For the speediest turn around possible, if you want less than 1000 leaflets, we recommend downloading the print quality pdf below and arranging printing yourself with your local printer.
However, for larger order of 1000+ please visit our shop.
“I stand with NHS staff’ leaflets
➤ Downloads
KONP and SOSNHS solidarity actions
In September 2023 Consultants and Junior Doctors were on strike on consecutive days, with one overlapping day on 20 September. Keep Our NHS Public local groups have been busy supporting NHS picket lines across the country We urge everyone to stand with striking NHS wherever possible.
Thousands of nurses were balloted by the RCN for further strike action. However the votes was to accept the pay deal, with a significant percentage opposed to doing so.
Junior doctors and were on strike 15 – 16 June and 11-15 August.
RCN nurses voted to reject the Government offer, as did UNITE.
GMB workers voted narrowly to accept, as did UNISON, the Royal College of Midwives.
KONP groups and health campaigners stand with nurses, ambulance workers, junior doctors, physios, NHS staff in struggle all over the country. Read KONP statement here, follow union links below.
Unite members at Guys and St Thomas’ Trust in South London, and the Yorkshire Ambulance Trust, will be the first in this new wave of Unite strikes in the NHS. Unite members there will overwhelmingly reject the government offer as totally inadequate. They are also increasingly angry that the government has blatantly failed to deliver its commitment to find new money to pay for its proposals rather than robbing other health budgets.
Junior doctors (ie all doctors except those at consultant level) are asking for restoration of pay to previous levels. They argue that this is needed to stop the haemorrhaging of junior doctors from the NHS. Around a third leave in the early years of training. doctors carried out an earlier historic four day strike starting Tuesday 11 April to (early morning) Saturday 15 April.
Hundreds of thousands of appointments, operations and procedures were postponed. And yet if the Government had made a serious offer the strike have been cancelled. Read here a junior doctor with many years experience as a doctor telling us that ‘Enough is enough’.
Previous strike and solidarity actions
GMB workers
GMB cleaners employed by ISS at South London and Maudsley Trust have carried out an ongoing series of strikes and are being supported by local KONP groups battling for Living London wage improvement and decent pay and conditions.
Doctors strikes in April
KONP members and groups supported major demonstrations and rallies called by junior doctors: Trafalgar Square Tuesday 11 April, Leeds 14 April and Birmingham Friday 14 April (see image).
Nurses strikes
A fantastic march (18 January 2023) from University College Hospital to Downing Street organised by NHS workers say NO, NHS Staff Voices and Keep Our NHS Public.
Nurses and ambulance staff pay: What we think
◼︎Nurses need better pay. Many can’t actually survive without it. Nurses are resorting to foodbanks and are being forced to decide whether to eat or heat. Health Care Assistants and Band 5 nurses form the bulk of the workforce and they are the worst paid.
◼︎ We need to train more nurses and retain more nurses
Inexperienced nurses rely on experienced colleagues – the very ones who are leaving or taking (often early) retirement. Working conditions are so bad that the workforce is haemorrhaging staff and nurses can receive their NHS pensions at 60 and a few at 55
◼︎ Still no plan for the NHS workforce
The Government had a chance to do something about pay. They could have agreed to a legally binding and funded workforce strategy when passing the Health and Care Act earlier this year. They refused this opportunity but it’s the only long-term solution. However one quick action to help retain nurses and immediately alleviate this nursing crisis is to increase pay. And the only way to do this appears to be to strike because the government is not listening to anything else.
◼︎ Safe care for patients
Nurses have a duty to keep patients safe and they want and try to, but are unable because of lack of funding and poor staffing levels. Daily we hear stories in the media of patients dying because of lack of beds, scanners, ambulances… and staff.
Read more Why nurses need to strike by RCN member Gay Lee
And more…
◼︎ Nurses need a restorative pay rise of 15% – and the government could choose to make that happen, it’s a political choice.
◼︎77% of the public support a 10% pay rise for all nurses (Yougov) and 78% of public support an annual pay rise for all nurses (Yougov)
◼︎82% of people think the government should increase NHS funding (Yougov)
◼︎Half (53%) of Britons say they would support increasing the basic rate of income tax from 20% to 21% and using the money raised to increase spending on the NHS. Fewer than a third of people (31%) are opposed. (YouGov)
◼︎Nurses on the frontline have seen their pay cut to the extent that they are £6,000 per year worse off now than in 2010 when the Conservative party first took office and implemented austerity measures (nursing notes).
◼︎With a cost of living crisis and inflation expected to hit 11%, 4% to 5% means this
Read more for full messaging guide
RCN strike news
See here for latest RCN News
All the RCN striking hospitals are listed here
See here for Strike map (users can search by union)
Ambulance strike news
