The public knows how hard NHS staff work and at what cost to themselves. Support is with the strikers, not the government
For a time in 2020, most of us spent a few minutes every Thursday evening showing support for NHS staff by clapping or banging pans, at our front doors. The national sentiment seemed to be reflected by those in power. Boris Johnson, speaking shortly after the horrors of the Covid wave that winter, praised the “incredible work of our NHS, our GPs, our nurses, our healthcare workers of all kinds”. He continued: “They’re heroes, heroes, heroes.”
Today, many of these same people, including frontline ambulance staff and call handlers, are striking in protest at years of declining wages and worsening conditions, both for staff and patients. Some of those striking are my friends and former colleagues: through a mixture of accident and necessity, I worked alongside them during the pandemic, crewing a frontline ambulance.
Rod Dacombe is director of the Centre for British Politics and Government at King’s College London. During the pandemic he worked on the NHS frontlines
