NHS staff and campaigners marched on Downing Street today as picketing nurses were greeted with outpourings of public support in towns and cities across the country on the second day of their historic strike for pay justice.

Vehicles passing nurses’ hospital picket lines sounded a cacophony of noise sparking cheers and waves of thanks from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) pickets.

And in London health workers and supporters gathered outside University College London Hospital to march on Downing Street.

The march was organised jointly by campaign groups NHS Workers Say No! and NHS Staff Voices which are part of the Keep Our NHS Public campaign.

They called for solidarity across the trade union movement in the struggle.

Jordan Riviera, occupational therapist and one of those speaking on the march, said: “I am one of the many health workers who cannot go on strike at this time, even though so many of us voted yes to strike action.

“We want to show we support the RCN and we would give anything to be out on strike as well, because the NHS cannot keep going as it is.

“Staff from all the different unions and disciplines in the NHS support the RCN, and offer solidarity because we all feel the same. 

“There are thousands and thousands of us who voted for strike action and support the RCN.”

Spirits were high on nurses’ picket lines nationwide.

Outside Royal Liverpool University hospital, senior nurse Danielle McLaughlan told the Morning Star: “It has been unbelievable on the picket line. 

“The support from the people of Liverpool has been fantastic — what you’d expect from the people of Liverpool. 

“Morale is really high. We are going nowhere until we are listened to.”

She said the action was as much about nurses’ commitment to their patients as it was about their pay campaign.

“I am on strike today because patients are at risk from poor staffing and because nurses cannot live on nurses’ wages,” she said.

“We are doing it for all the patients. All I care about is that patients are safe and at the moment they are not.

“Nurses are tired and they are sad that they cannot provide the care they want to provide.”

On the same picket line, Birkenhead Labour MP Mick Whitley told the Morning Star: “The Tories are total hypocrites. 

“[PM Rishi] Sunak clapped them then for a photo op and is slapping them down now to make them and other workers pay for the economic crisis the Tories have caused.”

At the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, women’s health unit deputy manager Sarah Hill thanked people for their “terrific” support including the ongoing parade of cars honking.

Shouts of “up the nurses” and beeps of support came from passing vans, black cabs, bikes, buses and cars as nurses stood on a picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London.

Dozens of drivers along the busy Westminster Road honked their horns in a signal of encouragement as the healthcare workers, some with their children alongside them, waved RCN banners.

Other supporters walked round the picket line offering nurses cake and other refreshments.

Nurse Anu Kapur, 35, who was on a picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital in London, said pay “doesn’t match” the level of work expected of herself and her colleagues, and voiced concerns about staff shortages on patient safety.

Speaking by a picket line in Newcastle, RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said: “I want to say to the Prime Minister this morning, please step in now and do the decent thing on behalf of every patient and member of the public of this country.

“But please do the decent thing also for nursing staff, get round the table and start to talk to me on their behalf.

“That’s the only respectful and decent thing to do, and let’s bring these strikes to a conclusion.”

But yesterday, government ministers who applauded nurses during the pandemic stubbornly repeated their refusal not to even talk to nurses’ leaders about their claim for a justifiable pay rise — let alone agree to one.

Today ambulance workers will also launch their battle to defend their pay and the NHS.

Members of Unison, GMB and Unite were on the picket lines in London, Yorkshire and north-west, north-east and south-east England.