"Put on your warm coat!" Nurses strike as Tory Steve Barclay dodges striking staff

The Royal College of Nursing says Steve Barclay "missed an opportunity" to come face to face with strikers after visiting a hospital without industrial action - and was only filmed in an empty room

Cameras were only allowed to show Health Secretary Steve Barclay in that empty room, according to the Mirror (

Image: PA)

Nurses have told the Conservative Health Secretary to 'put on his warm coat' and meet striking NHS staff after he dodged them on a key visit.

Tens of thousands of members of the Royal College of Nursing walked out this morning - the first nationwide shutdown in the union's 106-year history.

But Steve Barclay visited Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, where a strike vote did not pass and there is no picket line.

The Mirror understands that cameras have been instructed not to film him meeting staff, with the only footage showing him sitting in an empty room.

Meanwhile nurses, including RCN General Secretary Pat Cullen, were on a picket line in freezing temperatures at another hospital less than four miles away.

Downing Street denied that the top Tory was 'dodging' nurses on the picket line, saying: "There is a strike in 53 out of 264 areas.

"The Health and Care Secretary has met directly with the unions - I don't think you can say he avoids meeting with them."

But Royal College of Nursing secretary general Pat Cullen said: 'The Health Secretary missed an opportunity today to step out of his warm office, put on his coat and go down to see the nurses on our picket lines.

"I, on the other hand, do not. During my visits to our picket lines in London, Reading, Bristol and Cardiff, I was struck by the strength of nurses' feelings and their determination to do good for their patients.

Less than four miles away, nurses were on that picket line at St Thomas's Hospital - opposite the Houses of Parliament (

Picture:

Getty Images)

"They are tired of not being able to provide their patients with the care they deserve due to chronic underfunding of nursing for many years, which has left care dangerously understaffed.< /p>

"On Tuesday, Mr Barclay will have another opportunity to hear directly from nurses about why they deserve fair pay - I suggest he takes it."