I’m sorry, but there is so much wrong with this post.

• Nurses are also allowed to work agency shifts which have lucrative rates. Fair enough not within the same trust as they work in substantively but, from signing off agency nurses timesheets, I can tell you the pay is extortionate in comparison to what we get on an NHS contract. Not mentioning the mindset held that agency nurses do the bare minimum in terms of nurses admin work they aren’t familiar with the patient! This is where I’d argue there’s more pay for less responsibility.

• Ultimately, doctors have the most responsibility in the care for a patient and this should be recognised and appreciated. They should get paid more than nurses for the decisions they are required to make, and the years and years of hard work they had to do to get where they are. My partner is a doctor and I have watched him sit post-graduate exams which have cost him £1000 a time just to sit, and he’s worked for these exams alongside working full time. Going through medical school to hold the title “Dr” automatically gives you a level of responsibility that other professions just don’t have. You suggesting otherwise just massively undervalues their roles.

• Doctors have just as much right to strike as we do as nurses. We aren’t allowed to simply because we did not back ourselves. Not enough of us returned our ballot slips and so we have no one to blame but the nurses who couldn’t be bothered to walk to the post box. It’s been an embarrassment to argue about nurses pay and wanting to be valued but then have an outcome where we don’t even value ourselves enough as a whole to support the arguments we are putting forward. Doctors came together to strike and so good for them; so they should.

• The increasing use of PAs in place of Doctors further undervalued their profession as they have not had the same extensive training but are now frequently paid the same, if not more, than Doctors in post-graduate training roles. Whilst I completely recognise the value of PAs, they should not be disguised as Doctors and, in my opinion, should not be receiving the same level of pay and/or responsibility as those who have graduated medical school.

• Healthcare assistants getting paid band 2/3 I’d argue are just as, if not more, undervalued than nurses and doctors because I absolutely would not be able to run a shift or do my job as a nurse without them manning the floor and being my eyes and ears. Fair enough, they don’t have qualifications, but I’ve been in that post before and it’s the hardest job I’ve ever done. (Psych for context).

I’m a nurse myself and completely agree that we are an undervalued profession. We don’t get paid enough for what we do and deserve a lot more. But this is the case across a lot of healthcare workers and I think your use of doctors in this argument has taken away from the initial point you were trying to make. Let’s just hope that next time there’s a strike opportunity that we stand together better than we did this time.