NURSES saw huge displays of public support as they staged their second wave of strike action with a 48-hour stoppage at 57 NHS trusts across England today.

Cars honked and supporters joined nurses’ picket lines outside hospitals as the government’s detachment from reality became even clearer over its plans to legislate for “minimum staffing levels” during strikes.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said such levels were not available any day of the week, as the NHS struggles with more than 40,000 unfilled nurse vacancies, growing workloads, more nurses leaving every month in despair, and hospitals forced to open food banks for staff.

RCN general secretary and chief executive Pat Cullen said that to imagine having minimum staffing levels “is just so far removed from reality, and in fact it is a total insult to our patients and to nurses — it just doesn’t happen.

“You cannot have minimum staffing levels with 47,000 unfilled posts,” she said.

She said staff “are working in a crisis every single minute of the day.”

In a warning to Rishi Sunak, she said: “I would say to the Prime Minister this morning: if you want to continue to have strikes, then the voice of nursing will continue to speak up on behalf of their patients and that’s exactly what you will get.”

On some picket lines nurses told of their own personal struggles to survive while the value of their wages eroded year after year.

Intensive care nurse Nav Singh wept as she said she can “barely make ends meet.” 

Picketing King’s College Hospital in south-east London, she held a sign that read: “You’re killing me Rishi. Fair pay now.”

She said: “It’s not feasible to take pay cut after pay cut after pay cut. It’s heartbreaking. It’s a job that I love but I need to pay my bills.

“I’m living effectively pay cheque to pay cheque, can barely make ends meet, and I’m a senior nurse.”

Clinical nurse specialist Liz Wilson, also picketing at King’s, said: “I break myself on a daily basis to try and keep up with the workload and to try and give the patients what they need, and I go home every day feeling as if I haven’t achieved that, despite the fact that I’ve worked above and beyond the time that I am paid to be there.”

The RCN wants a pay rise equal to inflation plus 5 per cent and has said that although it is prepared to compromise, only better wages will attract new nurses and retain staff.

Nurses’ placards included: “Patients aren’t dying ’cos nurses are striking. Nurses are striking ’cos patients are dying.”

Another said: “While the government enjoyed wine and cheese, nurses were on their knees.”

NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor urged the government to negotiate, calling on ministers to “give the NHS a fighting chance and do all you can to bring an end to this damaging dispute.”

Both nurses and ambulance workers will escalate their action next month if the government maintains its refusal to negotiate on pay.

General union GMB, representing more than 10,000 ambulance workers, said the “cold, dead hands of numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street” were stopping a pay deal for its members.

It announced four more days of strike action on February 6 and 20 and March 6 and 20 across England and Wales.

GMB national secretary Rachel Harrison said: “GMB’s ambulance workers are angry. In their own words ‘they are done.’

“Our message to the government is clear — talk pay now.” 

Unite is also set to announce further ambulance strikes in the bitter dispute over pay and staffing.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The government has gone from clapping NHS workers, to ignoring them, insulting them, and now threatening them with the sack if they fight for decent pay.

“Ministers are paying the price for this in the growing anger among NHS workers and, as a result, growing support for strike action.”