Frontline NHS staff have told of the devastating toll of caring for dying Covid patients - as they are offered an ‘insulting’ 1% pay rise.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak was accused of believing “nurses are worth less now” than before the pandemic amid pressure to increase NHS pay.
The Government is giving some NHS staff in England a 1% pay rise, despite an expectation from health bosses that it would be 2.1%.
Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds told MPs today: “We need a straight answer now from the Chancellor.
“Why do the Conservatives believe our nurses are worth less now than they were before the pandemic?”
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The head of the NHS Sir Simon Stevens confirmed that workers were supposed to get 2.1%.
Instead, the Prime Minister is sticking by the below-inflation 1% rise from the Summer - to the fury of MPs, health bosses and hard working staff.
In a series of moving interviews with the Mirror, NHS heroes told how they held the hands of the dying so that they knew ‘they were not alone’.
At the height of the pandemic, University Hospital of North Tees in Stockton, Co Durham, had around 180 seriously ill patients.
Physios, domestics, and health care assistants - many among the lowest paid NHS workers - helped patients fighting for life.
Nurses read out moving messages from children and grandchildren.
And they fought back tears as they helped them make their last calls to loved ones.
Some patients did not want the sight of them in masks to be the last memory for their partners, parents, brothers, sisters - or children.
Consultant Katie Elmer had to warn them that they may not get ‘another opportunity’ if they went onto ventilation.
“You were losing multiple people at the same time,” said the mum-of-two, 48, a respiratory physician.
“It was so hard for nurses as you don’t usually have that many dying.
"When you think of those staff, domestics and porters, who gave so much to the patients - you don’t even want to think what the one percent rise means to them.
“I do think that is an insult after all they have done.”
Physio Amie Cronin, 35, witnessed the distress of patients who ‘knew they were alone’ due to the ban on visitors.
“Emotionally, it has been a rollercoaster,” said Amie. “It was the sheer volume of deaths.
"You expect that in health care - but you do not expect the numbers we had in Covid.”
Virtual iPad ‘visits’ often meant a final goodbye, though some patients could not face that last call to loved ones.
“That was so tough emotionally, as we are used to helping people get better,” added Amie.
“There was a gentleman I remember....he did not want to say his final goodbye.
“Over a 12 month period, that really does take a toll.
"No amount of training can prepare you for that.”
Health care assistant Jodi Pearson, 35, felt fear every day that she travelled into work.
“The first month, I was crying every day,” she said. “I was ready to leave.
“I was terrified on the drive to work, but I just had to get on with it.
"All of us were scared for our families.
"I don’t have kids. You are still thinking of others, elderly relatives, anybody vulnerable.”
One day, she noticed a sign outside the hospital which read: ‘We love and miss you mammy’.
“A mother at work had taken herself away from her family,” she added. “I cried at that.
"That’s why I say to people - stick to the rules. People made sacrifices for you.”
Ward matron Lizzie Meldrum, 35, a mum-of-two, fought back tears as she read out messages from the children, and grandchild of a Covid patient.
“It was emotionally exhausting, as well as physically tiring,” she said. “We had an email service called linking loved ones.
"I read messages from two children and a grandchild to one patient. You were trying to catch your tears.”
The ‘best part of the job’ was when patients went home, sometimes after weeks of care. “My message to people would be: this is real, very real,” said Lizzie.
Asked about the one percent pay offer, she added: “Nurses come into this profession for love, not for money, it is a passion.”
Selina Peart, 28, a staff nurse and mum, faced the worry of going home to her one-year-old son.
“When the first patients came in, you could see the fear in their eyes,” she recalled. “Some people would die very slowly and some people would die very quickly.
“You would go home after a shift and when you came back that person might not be there any more.”
On the pay offer, she added: “It has taken a pandemic for nurses to be appreciated for what they do every day.”
Donning full PPE at North Tees, domestic Karen Piggford, 57, a grandmother-of-one and mum-of-two, would sit with desperately ill Covid patients.
She saw the pandemic claimed life after life on a respiratory ward.
“The worst is just seeing people dying,” she told the Mirror.
“It was the older ones at first and then they started getting younger as time went on. There were no relatives, that was the hardest thing.
“I am a cleaner but you help those around you. It is a team on the ward, you help out as much as you can.
“You want them to know they are not alone.
“I used to go home and cry.”
A North Tees hospital spokesman stressed staff were offered advice and support including respite and a ‘pop up shop’ selling fresh food during the pandemic.
Tory frontbencher Lord Bethell claimed nurses were in well paid and secure jobs. He said: “There is a long queue of people who want these positions.”
Labour peer Lord Hunt of Kings Heath hit back: “It’s one thing for the Prime Minister to be filmed applauding his appreciation for NHS staff, but no amount of clapping is going to help pay for rising living costs.”
Sir Simon told the Commons health committee that as the head of the health service, he ‘obviously wants to see properly rewarded NHS staff, particularly given everything they’ve been through, over the course of the last year.’
The 2.1 percent offer had been the ‘long term plan’ from April, he added. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Boris Johnson had halved his offer after a year where NHS workers have put their lives on the line.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth added: “The head of the NHS has confirmed what we already knew: the Conservatives have broken their promise to the NHS and are cutting nurses’ pay.”
He told an audience at the IPPR think tank that the 1% pay award was “morally obnoxious” and was “only going to exacerbate the under-staffing issues we have in the NHS”.
The starting salary for most newly-qualified nurses is £24,907. NHS housekeeping assistants and domestic support workers are on £18,005 a year.
UNISON head of health Sara Gorton said: “Everyone will need the NHS at some point in their lives. When they do, they’ll want the health service to have all the staff and resources to deliver the care required.”
Mr Johnson said last week that the Government had offered NHS staff “as much as we can give”. Any increase is now unlikely to be applied until at least July.
Unions are organising a ‘slow hand clap’ on doorsteps and balconies around the country on Thursday at 8pm to show support for a fair NHS pay rise.
