Nursing professionals across Wales braved freezing temperatures and rain twice this month (15 and 20 December 2022) to come together to protest about poor wages and chronic staff shortages. RCN Wales has a clear mandate for further strike action with exceptional public support. Helen Whyley, Director of RCN Wales, said: ‘I am bitterly disappointed to be going into the Christmas holidays without any resolution to this. Two days of strike action does not seem to have moved our Welsh Government ministers at all who continue to hide behind a funding row rather than focusing on resolving a Welsh dispute impacting on Welsh people.
When I visited our picket lines, nurses told me they were facing this Christmas with heavy hearts. All of them know they will face staff shortages and nurses will barely be able to heat their homes let alone make the holidays special for their loved ones which they so deserve.
The current situation within NHS Wales is deeply concerning with significant risks to patients from insufficient nursing staff and a struggling burnt out workforce. The RCN believe that the public deserves better and the way to retain and attract nursing staff is to reward them appropriately for the safety critical work that they do. The nursing workforce must be supported to provide high quality patient care, and this must start with a significant and substantial pay rise.
I have written to the Welsh Government this week requesting a way forward to avoid more strike action in Wales. If the Welsh Government does not make a genuine commitment to resolving this dispute new strike days will be announced in the new year.”
