NURSES defied the cold weather in the second wave of strike action over pay and improving working conditions. 

Members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) across England went on strike at the Abbey Road entrance to Furness General Hospital in Barrow for a twelve-hour stint.

Motorists honked their horns in support as they drove past and one ambulance turned on its blue lights. 

The Mail: Phil Hunter (left) is a district nurse and is one of the picket supervisors Phil Hunter (left) is a district nurse and is one of the picket supervisors (Image: Newsquest, Daniel Pye)

These nurses will be on strike today and tomorrow and will plan further strikes for as 'long as it takes' according to the picket supervisors.

The supervisors confirmed that the nurses can still be triaged if there was a crisis situation and encouraged members of the public to use the hospital if they needed to. 

One of these picket supervisors was Phil Hunter, who manages a team of district nurses at the Alfred Barrow Health Centre. 

The Mail: Katie McGuire stood at the side of the road with other members of the RCNKatie McGuire stood at the side of the road with other members of the RCN (Image: Newsquest, Daniel Pye)

He said: "I’ve been in my post for 25 years now. I’m very conflicted about going on strike I joined the RCN when I was a student back in 1986 and the reason I joined was because they did not go on strike. At that time we had a beneficial agreement with the government that we wouldn’t go on strike - in return they would give us a decent pay rise and that worked really well depending on whichever government was in.

The Mail: The RCN protestors lined up along Abbey Road The RCN protestors lined up along Abbey Road (Image: Newsquest, Daniel Pye)

"Then in 2010, the austerity budget came along so funding for health service fell off a cliff but also nurse pay became zero pay rises for years. They just broke that trust so gradually we’ve seen it go down, and down, and down, and down.”  

Angela Scarr, a nurse, said that she was there to 'fight for fair pay for nurses so we can get extra staffing in and retain staff more importantly so that we can provide safe care for patients.

"It’s about patient care improving it and the only way we can do it is more staff," she said.

The Mail: One of the placards made for the protest One of the placards made for the protest (Image: Newsquest, Daniel Pye)

She said that people who would fill the shortfall in staff are going to places like Aldi which offers higher pay for lower responsibilities.

Katie McGuire, a member of the RCN who works in an office-based research role, said: “For our patients – it’s not just for the money we want to get more nurses into the profession and we just can’t attract them at the moment because of the conditions and the pay."

Mental health minister Maria Caulfield told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the “door is firmly open” to further talks with health unions.

Despite this, she gave no guarantee of pay rises. She said: “The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have been clear that that would be extremely difficult to do because it wouldn’t just be for nurses; you would have teachers saying, ‘Could we open this year’s pay settlement?’. You’ve got ambulance drivers, rail workers…

“There is a range of public sector workers who would also want the same request. Across the board, you’re talking about billions of pounds to pay for that and we want to put that into frontline services, as we are doing now.”