I joined nurses on the picket line at Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospital as they took part in four days of strike action. These strikes are about low pay but they are also about its consequences: falling standards of patient safety, which has been compromised by staffing shortages and under-resourcing. A wealthy country like Britain should never be in a position where health professionals are so undervalued and our NHS is so underfunded that nurses have to strike to secure fair pay and safe staffing levels. Members of the Royal College of Nursing fighting for fair pay are fighting for a safer health service for all of us. We will not achieve safe staffing levels across the NHS until we pay nurses and other staff what they are really worth.