NHS workers campaigning for pay increase to hold demonstration in Wigan

Demonstrations will be held simultaneously up and down the country this weekend under the NHS Action for Pay Justice banner, including in Wigan.

NHS employees are unhappy that they were not included in the Government’s recently-announced pay rise for public sector workers.

Between 30 and 50 people are expected to attend a socially-distanced demonstration on Saturday opposite Wigan Infirmary, on Wigan Lane, Swinley.

They had initially planned to join a larger protest in Manchester, but this was scaled back due to the new restrictions related to the pandemic.

Kimberley Williams, a nursing sister at Wrightington Hospital who was redeployed to ICU due to Covid-19, said: “The Government is saying we were in a three-year pay deal, which was technically misrepresented when we agreed to that in 2018. We feel that after the six months we have all just been through, it’s like a slap in the face that we have had no acknowledgement.

“We are going to be standing on the road observing social distancing. We are very aware of the current climate and the fact we have further restrictions hence the scaled-down protest. We are going to have placards and at noon, in line with the rest of the country, we will be doing a two-minute silence for fallen colleagues and we will be laying flowers.”

She said statistics showed that with cost of living rises, nurses actually earn 20 per cent less now in real terms than they did in 2010.

The demonstration will take place from 11am to 1pm on Saturday on Wigan Lane.

Several frontline healthcare workers around the country have died with coronavirus and they will be remembered during the demonstrations being held nationwide on Saturday.

Among those being honoured will be Linda Clarke, who worked as a midwife at Wigan Infirmary.

Linda, 66, had worked in Wigan’s maternity services for 30 years and was the delivery suite co-ordinator at the hospital.

She died with Covid-19 in April and the funeral procession passed the infirmary as she made her final journey.

Silas Nicholls, chief executive at WWL said she had brought “many new lives into our borough” and would be “sadly missed by her colleagues”.