For the first time in the century plus history of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), there has been a vote for strike action. Nursing staff at selected hospitals where a vote for industrial action was achieved will strike, although the RCN has said that cover will be provided for Accident and Emergency departments in those hospitals where strike action has been voted for.

Whilst I can see that nurses have been hit hard, as has everyone else, by rampant inflation, on the whole nursing remains a good job to have. There is a recognised career structure to allow an experienced nurse to rise in the ranks and therefore garner higher pay, a generous pension scheme and other benefits along with general public support for nursing staff, well at least from those who don’t experience the many shortcomings of the National Health Service (NHS). Nurses can also transfer to either NHS management and become part of the service’s lucrative but sclerotic bureaucracy or move out of the NHS altogether into the much more dynamic and well paid private sector either at home or overseas. Although I can see that some in the nursing profession, mostly those at the lower end of the pay scales might be struggling, on the whole nurses have what most other workers do not have and that is job security.

The question that I have about this strike is twofold. The first is that the RCN might have assumed that there will be more public support for the strike and for the nursing profession in general than there might actually be. The second part of the question is will any user of the NHS notice much difference from a hospital that is under strike conditions to one that is not?

Let’s examine the first part of this question in more detail. The image of nurses that has been sold to the public by the nursing union, the media and others is of a bunch of dedicated heroes selflessly devoted to their patients. For many of us this image is a false one. The nursing profession did not do itself any favours during the Pandemic when nurses presented us with the spectre of grinning self satisfied looking nurses dancing on videos on the Tik Tok platform, while patients with non-Covid conditions were discouraged from accessing NHS services. The reaction of many to the dancing nurses PR abomination that I spoke to and read during this period was scathing. A lot of this reaction can be summed up in the phrase, they are dancing while I can’t access the healthcare I have bloody paid for. A lot of people are going to remember the public relations disaster that the dancing nurses phenomenon represented and will judge the strikes as they’ve judged the nursing profession, which is negatively.

The second part of the question is will anybody notice any difference to the NHS? I believe that many people might not. This is because of two factors. The first is that the strike is going to be highly selective and will only take place in those hospitals where the nurses have voted for strike action. For those who live in areas where there is no strike then the hospital services will carry on as before and as if there was no strike. The second factor is that the NHS is so abominably crap for many of those who have the misfortune to have to use it that a few less nurses being visible might not make the sort of big public impact that the RCN might be hoping for. Also those of us who have seen or read about the terrible and inhumane way that too many patients are treated by some nurses, doctors and the system itself are unlikely to rush to the defence of NHS nurses. Those of us who’ve seen nurses gossiping around the nursing station whilst elderly patients struggle to reach food that has been placed out of their reach are not going to be rushing to the picket lines to give support to nurses. If like me you’ve encountered nurses who see nothing wrong in placing a cancer patient in a side room filled with filthy soiled linen or watched nursing staff who exude such a palpable air of incompetence that you don’t want to leave any relative with them, then you are not going to be having much sympathy for nurses.

I’m not against workers taking strike action. It is or rather should be the last resort option when negotiations with management have broken down. A world where workers do not have the ability to strike is one where the worker can be mercilessly exploited by their employers which in my view is something that is grossly unfair. However I believe that the RCN may have overestimated the impact of the nurses strike, which is slated to go on between December of this year to May next year because of the very localised nature of the strike. I also believe that they may have underestimated the anger that people feel towards Britain’s failing and in some cases failed, NHS and how closely the nursing profession is identified with that failure. People have seen and have taken on board the bad things about the nursing profession such as the enraging Tik Tok dances, the callousness of some nurses and the rudeness and incompetence of other nurses and that, rather than the positive aspects of the profession, will be what people refer to and remember when they consider the nurses strike and the demands of the nurses union.