Fair Pay for Nursing

They spend half of their degree on clinical placements, working in the thick of our health services. They are there to learn but they are also there to work just as hard as their colleagues across the healthcare workforce. Far from being silent observers, student nurses form an integral part of the teams in which they work and are directly responsible for caring for patients in the most complex situations (albeit under supervision). I held the hands of dying patients, I broke bad news to grief stricken parents, I left my shift two hours late because there was just too much to do. They learn their craft by doing, coordinating and managing care for the patients in the settings in which they work. They work long day shifts, night shifts and weekends; they face the same stresses as the rest of us working in healthcare in terms of short staffing, limited resources and increasing demands.