COLCHESTER Hospital’s intensive care unit had capacity for only one more patient on Monday after nurses staged a strike in a push for greater NHS spending.

The action is part of a nationwide drive from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) to receive a pay increase of 19 per cent.

The strike, which will last 28 hours, began on Sunday at 8pm and will last until midnight tonight.

Monday’s walk-out marks an escalation in the dispute between the RCN and the government because the strike is now hitting emergency departments, intensive care, and cancer care.

East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust chief executive Nick Hulme said the trust requested additional nurses to staff Colchester Hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) after the RCN granted strike exemptions to allow staff to work on Sunday night.

After nurses decided against coming in, however, the additional capacity at Colchester’s ICU was reduced to one patient.

Mr Hulme told BBC Radio 4’s the World at One: “Nurses decided, as is entirely within their right – they are not obliged to turn up even if we ask the RCN – and unfortunately we weren’t able to get sufficient nurses to cover the intensive care areas, so we had to reduce the capacity significantly and transfer patients out.”

But Vanessa Davis, who is the chairman of the RCN’s Essex branch, argued the lack of NHS funding has impaired the quality of care nurses provide to such an extent that strike action is the only way the RCN can get their message across.

Mrs Davis, 58, was one of scores of people who lined Turner Road on Monday morning as part of the strikes.

She said: “You have to think about the bigger picture – we have staffing levels which are falling all the time, and nothing is done about it.

“We have staff in many areas here who are working on very poor staffing levels all the time, and you have to think what would happen in the long term if we didn’t take strike action.

“People are taking action because they want to make a stand for patients.”