PMQs: Keir Starmer says nurses strike is 'badge of shame' for Tories
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Gavin and Stacey actress Alison Steadman, 76, has described how “people are dying” as a direct result of our NHS being underfunded. The star, who played beloved character Pam Shipman in the popular BBC sitcom, slammed Tory ministers for their “ridiculous” and “disgraceful” failure to address pay increases for nurses.
Following the news that nurses have been on strike due to low pay, health unions have offered to call off walkouts beginning on Thursday.
Their condition was that Health Secretary Steve Barclay agree to hold negotiations on pay, but the minister has refused.
Sympathetic to the plight of nurses across the country, Alison weighed in on the issue, insisting that our country no longer deserves the name of “Great” Britain due to the “appalling” state of our NHS.
The comedic actress, who is a patron of Keep Our NHS Public, said there are not enough doctors, nurses and ambulance workers to allow the system to function as it should.
Alison described how the NHS has been “underfunded” and “not respected in the way it should be”, slamming the last 12 years of Tory rule.
She said: “We’ve all had experience of there just not being enough nurses and not being enough ambulances. It is just diabolical that people are being kept in ambulances for 12 hours outside A&E. It is just not on.
“People are dying because they can’t get into hospital. We need more nurses, more doctors, more ambulance workers. We need more hospitals.”
The actress went on to recall seeing a “poor elderly woman” who had fallen in the entrance of a Sainsbury’s when she went shopping earlier this year.
Alison described how she was left “lying on the ground for three hours waiting for an ambulance”
“I just thought this is not on. This poor, poor woman. It was like a third world country,” she said. “You can’t call it Great Britain anymore, I don’t think.
“I love my country, I’m faithful to my country, but I do think over the last 12 years, things have gone down,” she told The Mirror.
The star went on to describe how “ridiculous” it was that ministers were unwilling to discuss pay for nursing, wich she described as “one of the poorest paid jobs in the country”.
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Alison also pointed out that “thousands are leaving the nursing profession because the pay is so poor” and called on the government to handle the strikes, which she felt were a result of hardworking people being “pushed to the absolute limit”.
She also praised Labour leader Keir Starmer, whom she said was “doing a good job” in his role as opposition leader.
The union is currently demanding a pay rise of 5% above the RPI rate of inflation, which was 14.2% in October, but Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has hinted that she could compromise if the government negotiates on pay.
Ministers have repeatedly insisted they can’t afford to give inflation-busting pay rises and say they have accepted the independent pay review body’s recommendation of a £1,400 rise.
On Monday night she told Sky News: “I needed to come out of this meeting with something serious to show nurses why they should not strike this week. Regrettably, they are not getting an extra penny.”
She also said that Mr Barclay “showed total belligerence this afternoon, he closed his books and walked away”.
“I did most of the talking, there was very little talking coming from the other side of the table, except to keep repeating to me that he has accepted the independent pay review body recommendation,” she added.
Keep Our NHS Public is campaigning for a well funded and fully publicly owned and provided health service.
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