 The United Kingdom is witnessing a wave of strikes in the range of sectors. From December 15th, this strike wave is set to hit the National Health Scheme or the NHS, UK's publicly funded health care system. NHS nurses across the country have voted to take this strike action in their fight for fair pay and safer working conditions. On December 15th and 20th, a hundred thousand nurses are set to walk off their jobs across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. These nurses are organised under the Royal College of Nursing or the RCN. The union declared the intention to launch the strike, stating that the UK government has rejected their offer of formal negotiations. This will be their biggest ever industrial action. Apart from nurses, ambulance workers have also mobilised to participate in this industrial action. On the 21st and 28th, ambulance workers with the unions Unison, Unite and GMB will be striking in England and Wales. Why this strike? RCN said that nurses have had enough of being taken for granted, enough of low-pay and unsafe staffing levels, enough of not being able to give their patients the care they deserve. According to the union, nursing staff has been underpaid for at least a decade. Moreover, the cost of living crisis which has rocked the continent has led to skyrocketing inflation making their living conditions even worse. Many are living in poverty conditions having to rely on food banks for their meals. With increasing energy bills, healthcare staff is looking at a cold and bleak winter ahead with no certainty of how they'll heat their homes. The NHS is also seeing a record number of vacancies. There are currently 47,000 vacant nursing posts in the NHS across the UK. Thousands of burnt-out underpaid nurses have left the profession in the past year. With such high levels of understaffing and stressful working conditions, patient safety is at risk. According to an RCN survey, 8 out of 10 nurses said there wasn't enough staff to provide patients the care they need. 44% of the nurses said they have been unwell from the stress and overwork. Nurses have said these strike actions are not just necessary for them and other healthcare staff, they are also essential for patient safety. And it's a disgrace really that they're one of the 7 million people that have sat on wedding lists year on year with the government turning their back on patients as well as nursing staff. And why are they on those wedding lists? They're on those wedding lists because there aren't the nurses there to care for them within those services with 47,000 nurses absent every single day. Our action is as much for our patients as it is for our nursing staff. In response, until now the UK government has refused to negotiate with the striking unions. The Prime Minister and other representatives have instead sought to malign the strike action as an attempt to disrupt healthier services without considering why workers have decided to take the step. In response to such statements, RCN General Secretary Pat Cullen said, the government has the power to stop the strike action but refuses to. She stated the union is ready to press pause if the Health Secretary Steve Buckley agrees to a meeting to negotiate a deal. In Scotland, strike actions have been paused after the Scottish government agreed to negotiate and reached some pay agreements. SAVE STRIKING CONDITIONS The strike action is widely being portrayed as a danger to patients' lives and safety. However, the nursing unions have adopted a number of measures to maintain a balance between patients' safety while also causing enough disruption to get the attention of employers and the government. The walkouts will be targeting routine care instead of emergency treatments. Exemptions will be given to nurses tending to patients in emergency conditions, patients requiring urgent diagnostics, patients in the ICU, etc. How's your day been? Good. And they've looked after you really nicely? Yeah, they always do. It's a pity you don't pay them all. We're trying. No, you're not trying. You need to try harder. Right. I will take that away. They are a very nice team there, aren't they? They are. But it's important because they do very hard work. FUTURE PLANTS The ASEAN strike has been planned in phases. More dates can be announced if governments fail to enter formal negotiations. Overall strike actions could spread to other sections of the NHS as well as midwives and physiotherapists are also holding ballots.