STRIKING nurses outside St Thomas’s hospital in London said today that they felt the government has treated NHS staff with “contempt” and “does not care” about them or their patients. 

Jane, who was on the picket line outside the busy London hospital, condemned ministers for failing to engage in talks with nurses’ union RCN. 

“I just feel like they seem so distant from us, from what we’re going through, that they are contemptuous of us and that they don’t care … and by extension they don’t care about our patients either,” she told the Star. 

The London-based nurse, who has worked in the NHS for three years and did not want to give her surname, said that she had joined the picket because chronic staff shortages mean “we can’t look after our patients safely.” 

She explained: “You’re having to look after more patients than is safe to do.

“It’s got to the point where not only is it demoralising for the nurses, it’s [also] not safe for the patients.

“So many shifts I’ve left feeling like I’ve not done the job I wanted to do.”

Maverick Carreon, a staff nurse at St Thomas’s hospital, who was also on the picket, said that nurses were often being asked to look after patients at a ratio of 8:1 despite the safe level being 4:1. 

“Because we are overworked and underpaid, people are actually leaving the profession which they love,” he told the Star. 

“Yes, the government says that it hires a lot of people, but the thing is new nurses cannot do the work that experienced nurses can do.

“During the Covid times a lot of nurses … have been working hard, a lot of us died at that time. Now we just want fair pay for nurses.”

While striking nurses expressed anger at their treatment by the government, the atmosphere on the picket was upbeat and lively, with strikers banging drums and dancing. 

Passing cars and buses beeped their horns in support, prompting rounds of cheers from the picket line. 

James, a clinical team leader for the North West Ambulance Service, said that he was on the picket line to support the nurses ahead of planned strike action by ambulance staff tomorrow. 

“Basically all my friends are nurses … and I thought that if I’m going to be on strike tomorrow I can’t just sit and watch today.”