Current Struggles

A hot winter? – A series of local strikes in the NHS

In December 2024 there were a few local disputes going on within the NHS

Interviews

Clinical research – Report from a friend

As health workers, we have to start understanding how our industry works in order to be able to take it over and run it in the interest of everyone

International

Film – General strike of health workers in Italy, November 2024

On the 20th of November 2024, 85% of public hospital workers went on strike

Meetings

National meeting – Health workers in struggle

Invitation to a discussion and organising weekend

History

Blast from the Past – ‘Overseas Nurses’ in the 1970s

We re-publish below an article that was featured in Race Today, a political magazine written by black radicals and revolutionaries between 1973 and 1988

Meetings

Report from the Vital Signs meeting, 12th of November 2024

A group of colleagues who work at the two main hospitals in Bristol met at our regular meeting

Debate

The mysterious world of NHS bands – or how we re-grade health care assistants to a Band 8

NHS Bands – not only paying us peanuts, but also different amounts of peanuts

International

Current and past hospital movements in Germany – Conversation with a friend and fellow worker

We visited a comrade who has been working and organising as a nurse since the late 1980s

Worker and Patient

Datix? Greatix? Forget–about-ix?

We need a culture of speaking up, but for that we need a collective self-confidence

History

Blast from the past – Nurses in 1985

We document this ancient article on the situation of nurses in the mid-1980s by Carl Pinel

Debate

Industry and pharmaceutics, by Marco Boschetti

We translated the introduction to an interesting book on the pharmaceutical industry

Issues

Vital Signs no.2

If you are interested in helping with the distribution of the hardcopy, give us a shout: vitalsignsmag@proton

Debate

What do we mean by ‘a new society’?

The subtitle of this magazine is ‘The struggle for a new society’

Meetings

Report from the Vital Signs meeting, 27th of September 2024

A handful of us who work at Southmead hospital and the BRI met up to talk about things at work and beyond

International

Struggles of an independent workers’ group at a private hospital in Germany

It is interesting to read how the group started as part of the mainstream trade union and then had to organise itself independently

International

Nous serons plus patients – A rebellious health workers book from France

We translated the intro to a new book published by rebellious health workers in France

Meetings

Report from the Vital Signs meeting, 30th of August 2024

A handful of us from Southmead hospital and the BRI met and primarily talked about the various cuts due to the ‘financial crisis’ of the trust

Current Struggles

Conversation with a junior doctor about the recent strikes

The recent junior doctor strike was significant, not just for doctors, but for all NHS workers

Worker and Patient

Account of a working class patient who had cancer surgery and treatment in Bristol

We need to foster new relationships of solidarity between health workers and patients that doesn’t reduce patients to objects or clients

Debate

Book review: Critical – Why the NHS is being betrayed and how we can fight for it

‘Critical’ provides us with good material for discussion, which we can use to engage in a series of interviews with doctors and other health workers

Current Struggles

On the current pay offer for NHS workers – The Labour government is a more skilled opponent

Starmer himself knows how to use state power in more subtle ways than a lofty money-bag like Sunak

Interviews

CrowdStrike or Workers’ Strike? – Conversation with a NHS IT worker

The following conversation with a NHS IT worker took place before the CrowdStrike cock-up…

International

Nothing to lose in Toulouse – Reports from struggling health workers in France

We document two recent struggles of health workers in Toulouse, France

International

Speech by an apprentice health worker at the ‘Walk of Care’ in Berlin

We document a speech by an apprentice care worker held at a recent ‘Walk of Care’ in Berlin

Working Conditions

Calling (off) all agency and bank workers – What’s happening?

On the current cuts of bank and agency shifts in the NHS and the local hospitals in Bristol

Worker and Patient

Issue no.1 – HCA philosophy / For a new relation with patients

This series will present reflections on the relationship between health workers and patients

Current Struggles

Issue no. 1 – Minimum wages for maximum stress

Since the pay dispute in 2022/2023, there have been a number of local strikes across the country within the NHS

Working Conditions

Issue no.1 – The Letting Game – Letting you down

Imagine 18,000 hospital workers blocking the M32 or the port in Avonmouth depot demanding a rent cap for Bristol

Working Conditions

Issue no.1 – Tears, sweat and placements

In the coming issues of Vital Signs we will interview nursing and medical students about their experiences

International

Issue no.1 – Against the global trauma ward! Against the bosses’ wars!

Why we have to oppose all states in their military race for markets and create unity amongst our fellow workers worldwide

Current Struggles

Issue no.1 – Re-banding or banding together?

If we don’t stick together and stand up for ourselves against stress and low wages, the bitching will start sooner or later

Working Conditions

Issue no. 1 – Bye, bye Dubai – Hello Bedminster!

Health workers migrate and bring with them experiences from around the globe

Debate

Issue no.1 – For workers’ and patients’ control of the health industry

There are good reasons why we need more workers’ and patients’ control over the health system

Working Conditions

Issue no.1 – Short staffed and short changed?

In this series we‘ll look at how our work and the conditions of work change

Debate

Issue no.1 – Editorial

This magazine represents an effort to create a forum where together with co-workers we can reflect on our experiences, our struggles and our potential to create solidarity

Current Struggles

Thoughts after the first round of NHS strikes

The fact that, after three decades, nurses have gone on strike again in the UK is positive, at the same time we need to have a careful look at the weak points of the strike in order to learn for the future

History

Nicoletta Stame and Francesco Pisarri: Proletarians and health (1977) – Chapter One

A book about the autonomous workers’ committee at the university clinic in Rome in the 1970s, bringing together medical students and porters, workers and patients

History

Nicoletta Stame and Francesco Pisarri: Proletarians and Health (1977) – Intro

This book documents an inquiry into a recent struggle against class medicine and for the proletarian management of a hospital in which the workers on the Policlinico Umberto I in Rome have been involved in since 1971

History

Struggles in the 1970s at the polyclinic in Rome – Part 1

The collective’s outstanding character was based on the fact that it included medical students, nurses, porters and doctors, and aimed at the socialisation of the divided knowledge within a project of workers’ control of the clinic

Current Struggles

NHS pay dispute from below – Online newsletter no.4 / 2021

Welcome to the fourth newsletter for a worker-led pay dispute from below…

Current Struggles

NHS pay dispute from below – Online newsletter no.3 / 2021

Welcome to the third newsletter for a workers-led NHS pay dispute

Current Struggles

NHS pay dispute from below – Online newsletter no.2 / 2021

Welcome to the second newsletter for a workers-led NHS pay dispute

Current Struggles

NHS pay dispute from below – Online newsletter no.1 / 2021

Analysis and intervention in the debate during the pay dispute in 2021/22

Leaflets

Leaflet from France/Belgium

We document a leaflet written by friends in France and Czech Republic

Leaflets

NHS protest, 15th of May 2021

Leaflet written for the NHS pay campaign in 2021

Leaflets

Fellow health workers – We have to take this struggle into our own hands

Leaflet written for the NHS pay campaign of action in July 2021

History

French lessons – What we can learn from the 1988 hospital workers’ strike coordinations in France

We translated the following two texts from 1988, because we think that there are still things we can learn from the strike movement back then

History

Hospital workers’ assemblies in Germany – Organising in the “White Factory”

We translated this text from the late 1980s because it can still serve as a reference-point when searching for new ways that we can organise ouselves as health workers from the bottom up, rather than waiting for orders from the top

History

Review of ‘Memoirs of a callous picket’, by Jonathan Neale

It is a short and readable book, full of useful and interesting information about the wider social and political context in which NHS nurses went on strike in 1982

Debate

Debate on the current character of hospitals and their restructuring

Friends from France have written a detailed paper on the question – read it here

Debate

‘Hospital and Emancipation’, By Nadja Rakowitz

Left politics, which claims to represent a democratic perspective that goes beyond capitalism, cannot be satisfied with the goal of merely redistributing the social wealth generated under capitalist conditions

Debate

Missed chances – Report from the annual meeting of the Unison Health Service Group

During the last week of April I participated as a delegate of my Unison branch of a local NHS Trust in this annual meeting that brings together all Unison reps in the private and public health sector

Current Struggles

Warning signals – The UNISON Scotland sell-out of the NHS workers’ pay campaign

UNISON Scotland recommended their members in the NHS to accept a 4% pay offer of the Scottish government

Current Struggles

Example of action of ITU nurses resulting in better pay for bank staff

The action of the ICU nurses show that management reacts to collective pressure from below, even if only a small group of workers are involved

Current Struggles

Whose strike is it? – Interview with mental health nurse and RCN member

Interview with a registered mental health nurse in the UK who works in South East England in an NHS community mental health and addictions service

International

Learning from health workers in Argentina – On the current rebellion in Neuquén

What started as a health workers’ dispute has turned into a regional uprising

International

Paperwork nightmare – A creative way to strike by emergency services in Germany

A form of labour dispute – while the collective bargaining dispute was on paramedics refused to do the bureaucratic work that is necessary for the billing of services

International

“We don’t need applause, we need change!” – Interview with a striking nurse in Berlin

On the 23rd of August 2021, workers of the Berlin hospitals Charité and Vivantes went on a three-day warning strike

International

The experience of the Nurses’ Initiative in Czech Republic

The Nurses’ Initiative has been operating in the Karlovy Vary Regional Hospital

International

Updates after recent staffing disputes at hospitals in Germany

In Germany we have seen hospital workers going on strike over staffing levels – initially in the two biggest hospitals in Berlin, then more recently in six university clinics in North-Rhine Westphalia

International

“Strikes have to be able to emancipate” – What are the results of the Berlin health workers strikes of 2021

The strike in the state-owned Berlin hospitals 2021 will go down in the history of the hospital movement for its length of more than 30 days alone

Working Conditions

Interview – NHS walk-in clinic worker

Interview with a worker in an acute medicine walk-in clinic in a hospital in England about the situation during Covid

Working Conditions

Interview with a community midwife

This interview reveals, amongst other things, the amount of unpaid overtime worked in the NHS during Covid and the transformation of ‘professional online forums’ into channels to discuss working conditions during the lockdown

Working Conditions

The struggle for better staffing levels in hospitals – UK nurse interview and a response from Germany

The struggle for better staffing levels is a struggle against stress, burnout, bitching and bad vibes amongst colleagues and against the neglect of patients

Issues

Vital Signs no.1

Read the PDF of Vital Signs issue 1 by clicking on the link above

Worker and Patient

Philosophie der Health Care Assistants (HCA)

Wir sehen, in welchem Zustand die Gesellschaft ist, als würde sie mit einem Barometer gemessen