Frontline NHS heroes call for 15% rise in pay protest

NHS staff protested outside Scottish hospitals yesterday to demand a 15 per cent pay rise.

Nurses and healthcare workers made a whistlestop tour in a convoy of cars decorated with balloons, banners, stickers and streamers.

Backed by the GMB union, they left Gartnavel General Hospital in Glasgow beeping their car horns.

The ‘procession for pay’ made its way to Glasgow Royal Infirmary before driving to Paisley, Renfrewshire, and finishing at Ayr hospital. Brenda Eadie, 43, a nurse for more than two decades who helped organise the event, said: ‘NHS workers are on their knees.

‘They just scraped through the first hit of coronavirus and can’t do a second wave. Nurses are letting their registrations lapse and are leaving the profession. The NHS is always going to be needed – we need to fight for it and save the workers.’

She added: ‘Nurses are doing the jobs of three people because people are off and they are barely getting paid for one.

‘They are using food banks and a lot of people are out of money because they are taking on alternative accommodation so they can go to work and keep their family safe. It’s not just nurses but healthcare support workers, porters and other NHS workers are also off sick or isolating or can’t cope.’

GMB Scotland organiser Karen Leonard, who took part in the convoy, said: ‘The union are backing all NHS workers for the full 15 per cent rise, or £2 an hour – whichever is greater. We are calling on the Scottish Government to recognise the work they’ve been doing.’

Next month, 60,000 health service workers belonging to the Unison union will be balloted over strike action.