WE are at a pivotal moment across the health service, with workers preparing for national strike action this side of Christmas. The Royal College of Nursing achieved a historic strike mandate for the first time in its 109-year history and we will see walkouts on December 15 and 20.

Additionally, GMB, Unison and Unite have confirmed that there will be national walkouts across the ambulance service with a plan to co-ordinate dates for maximum disruption.

This is not a decision which staff will have taken lightly. Parts of the NHS are suffering unprecedented pressure for this time of year. The recruitment and retention crisis continues with over 100,000 vacancies and many staff leaving to work for an agency, to work in the private sector or leaving the profession altogether.

Waiting lists are at record highs and alarmingly, this week, there were no acute paediatric beds available across London. Within the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service where I work, children as young as five are waiting up to 12 months just to attend an initial assessment. This simply cannot continue and is why we are seeing NHS staff organise like never before.

Workers are overwhelmingly rejecting the 2022 pay award, which is yet another real-terms pay cut which will only intensify the staffing crisis and push thousands more workers further into financial difficulty as we face more hardship due to the ever-deepening cost-of-living crisis.

Hospitals now have foodbanks for staff, several are handing out welfare packages and are giving staff access to donated school uniforms for their children — and we have even heard reports of NHS Staff sleeping in their cars as they cannot afford the fuel to and from work.

With “austerity 2.0” now confirmed, many of these issues are just going to get worse and worse in the years ahead if things don’t change.

Aside from the difficulties the workforce is facing, our patients are really suffering as well. Staff are struggling to offer patient care at the standard which we would all expect. This only inflicts further injuries on a burnt-out and demoralised workforce across all of the NHS.

To give just one example, mental health nurses at my local accident and emergency have reported assessing patients outside between parked cars due to the lack of available space to attend to people presenting in crisis.

Many trusts sadly did not reach a mandate to strike, but we are encouraging members to not be disheartened: it is important to emphasise that we have already come so far at this point and have achieved the best ballot results for decades.