The NHS needs funding. If we don't pay more tax pennies now, we'll pay for it later, when we're at our most vulnerable.

We're still over 30,000 nurses short and I saw and felt the impacts of this during my hospital stay last week. Hours without pain relief with a broken elbow. Unable to get to the toilet as no one could take me, bed pan taking ages to be collected, the moans of distressed and confused patients who the staff just could not get to in time. 

Nurses were working night after night at full stretch and were absolutely exhausted. They had worked through three waves of covid. I was on a former covid ward.

We can and MUST do better. No one wants a tax rise, but we must not end up helpless in hospital for hours, we MUST fix our broken system.

Falls are the most common health and safety incident reported in hospitals, at around 240 000 a year in England and Wales. Why? From what I saw, no available staff to safely help people with mobility. 

I managed four months of nurse training a few years ago. It was a 6am-9pm job. I was told we were 300 nurses short in my city.

In a Royal College of Nursing poll, 80% of nurses reported that they could not provide the standard of care they wanted to, and 36% of nurses even reported having to leave care incomplete due to staff shortages.

We MUST do more. This CAN'T continue.

If we don't support the NHS many more of us and our loved ones may continue to suffer the impact of this.

Written by Lydia Benz