‘Nurses have cried with me’: Pat Cullen on strikes, 16-hour shifts and colleagues who can’t afford shoes (The Guardian, 16 January 2023)

Summary

In this interview for The Guardian, Pat Cullen, General Secretary of Royal College of Nursing (RCN), talks about how RCN members are being forced to use food banks, her frustration with the government and how she learned to be a tough negotiator. She discusses the issues that led to nurses balloting to strike—violence, sexual assault, unsafe staffing levels and pay that has not kept up with inflation—and outlines the difficult realities of being a nurse in the NHS. She also describes the negotiations with the Government, who according to Cullen, refused to discuss nurses' pay.