MADAM – As an NHS health worker, I went on strike on Monday for part of the morning (the official strike times being 7am – 11am).

My union (Unite) gave plenty of notice to all NHS employers so that, should staff take action, patients would be unaffected.

Thousands took strike action and many thousands more are working ‘to rule’; refusing to do unpaid overtime including through their lunch breaks.

On average, NHS staff give almost a day a week in unpaid overtime.

This is why I took action.

The NHS Pay Review Body recommended a full one per cent rise for all staff.

The government decided that only those at the top of their pay band could have the rise, so only a minority will receive this.

The government says that those who have incremental rises (not at the top of their pay bands yet) are given pay rises for doing nothing.

The system of incremental rises is in place because staff are not on their full pay until they reach the top of their pay band.

This recognises that it takes experience and further study to reach their professions’ standard.

The staff are not on a ‘stealth system of automatic pay rises’ as the Telegraph put it.

Staff rise up through their increments using an appraisal system that is designed to ensure they are safe and knowledgeable and their skills are increasing.

The government and NHS employers keep citing the average NHS earnings as being high, constantly publishing the pay scales of staff with the wide range of pay levels.

In fact, what they never show are the median salaries; what 95 per cent of staff actually earn.

Studying the median salaries alters the picture dramatically.

Thousands of NHS staff barely have enough to live on, many being paid less than the living wage and many having to take second jobs or relying on top-up benefits.

The use of these benefits means that the low wages are no saving to the public purse.

Those in the NHS fighting for a pay rise, following several years of wages declining in real terms, are a decreasing number too; they may not include those whose services have gone to private contractors or those whose bosses have set local pay systems, opting out of the national pay system.

The government says that cutting pay prevents cutting jobs but they have cut jobs too.

The last few years have seen dramatic decreases in staffing in the parts of the NHS that are still publicly-owned.

Four years of nasty media coverage aimed at making NHS workers appear greedy and uncompassionate, severe cuts to NHS funding including 20 per cent of ‘efficiency savings’, and the privatisation of many services forcing colleagues to work for companies with a profit, rather than a patient motive (yet still under the banner of the NHS), have made me bitter.

Terms and conditions being pushed down, being made to pay for the country’s ‘deficit’, public sector spending being made the scapegoat, rather than pointing the finger at the liberalised banking sector which has got off scot-free and, worst of all, seeing patients suffer as a consequence has made me angry beyond belief.

Of course I appreciate that everyone is being hit by the government’s ambitions to reduce spending, but I can only take strike action for myself – laws prevent me striking to save the NHS or to stick up for my patients or stick up for other workers.

So please understand that when I went on strike it was for a whole lot of reasons, not simply for a few quid more.

Hannah Basson

Equalities Officer