Nurses have been out in force across Greater Manchester for the first strikes to hit the region in the Royal College of Nursing's 106-year history.
"[Nurses] are run ragged, staying past their shifts, they've kept me alive," she told the Manchester Evening News while on the picket line today. Charlotte Barker, a diagnostics nurse in Wigan, told the M.E.N. this morning that NHS staff like her can no longer provide safe care as underfunding and understaffing has been chronic for years.
“We deserve more, as do our patients. We have had to deal with substandard pay awards for far too long - we have had to go to extremes, working extra shifts, going without food. “25,000 nurses left the register last year. I’ve worked for the NHS for over 10 years, most nurses - most nurses then would want to come back and give a bit more. That’s not the case now, they are just demoralised and want to leave."