Nursing Counts

Over the last few weeks I have been inundated with e-mails from potential constituents about all kinds of good causes. Ending child deaths, planting more trees, getting rid of the dreaded TTIP. 

It's heavy going, because while most candidates probably have some intern going through and responding, I have a fulltime job on the frontline of the NHS and even Agent Price has a real job too. 

Agent Price on his birthday.

So I was really chuffed to see the RCN have started lobbying candidates because frankly, if politicians had any idea what it is actually like being a nurse, health care assistant or allied health professional, well, we probably wouldn't have endured a 5 year pay freeze for starters. 

Slimeballs from various parties will try and cosy up to the nursing lobby because nurses means votes and votes means prizes. Unfortunately, in reality, they're all apologists for varying degrees of cuts and privatisation that have absolutely no idea the lengths we go to to keep our patients safe. 

We work weekends. We work bank holidays. We work through the night. We work on Christmas. We miss special occasions. 

Sometimes we forget not to talk about faeces in polite company. Sometimes we cry. Sometime when we go to sleep we can still hear the sounds of call-bells and alarms. Sometimes we get abused. 

We keep people alive. We give people dignity. We teach. No-one ever became a nurse for the money, but for a third of the pay of one lazy-arse back-bencher you start to think, maybe we don't have effective advocates.

That's why I'm standing. 

We can't rely on politicians with their corporate interests and privileged lifestyles to have any idea what we need to provide a decent service without totally losing our minds. They probably wouldn't even understand why this meme is funny. 

There's always one. 

We deserve £30k starting pay. We deserve double time for unsocial hours. We need a regulator that is democratically run by us, not an outside body which charges us ever increasing fees for the pleasure. 

We need more staff, more beds and more time. 

We need a system which doesn't pit hospital against hospital, practice against practice. We need  one NHS not hundreds of competing trusts and providers . We need a social care system that publicly owned, run and accountable. 

No-one ever became a nurse for the money. Politicians on the other hand, not so much. If I get elected, I'll take what I would otherwise be making as a Band 5. I'll also keep up my registration because I am proud to be a nurse and because that will make me better placed to fight for our profession, our patients and our service. 

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