Dear Mirror readers...

RCN General Secretary and chief exec Pat Cullen writes:

Your support means everything, and please bear with us. We are taking this action for everybody who relies on a nurse or healthcare support worker. You have been short-changed for years.

Every day operations are cancelled due to lack of nurses. When nurses feel they have no choice but to quit, it is patients who pay the price. You deserve safely staffed services, and we deserve to work in them.

Ministers must look in the mirror and ask how long they will put nursing staff and the public through this.

They pushed us to strike – only they can pull

us back out.

PLEA RCN’s Pat Cullen