Over this period NHS funding has, broadly speaking, risen about 1-2% over inflation. If NHS funding increases with inflation yet demand increases, then clearly spend per person will drop. Demand has increased considerably above 2%, which is why the NHS is failing to manage it.

Secondly, the NHS is not responsible for social or community care. When elderly folk come into hospital they decondition very quickly and require physio and OT to get back on their feet. Often a care package is required, sometimes even a care home place.

This is the responsibility of the local council to sort out. But council funding has been cut and social workers are dealing with huge case loads. So there are big delays. And we can't send the patients safely home until their care package is sorted out. So they wait. And wait.

And they sit on hospital wards waiting. Often bored and frustrated. About 33% of hospital beds are filled with 'fit for discharge' patients. UK hospitals can do nothing about this. We are effectively working on 66% capacity. Which is one of the key reasons why A&E is rammed.

So when I do my 'emergency take' ward rounds I am seeing patients in chairs, in corridors, in the back of ambulances. There is little privacy and dignity is impaired. We all do the best we can but it is a poor environment. This has become much worse over the past 5 years.

No self-respecting doctor or nurse enjoys working in this environment. No care worker likes to deliver poor care. Salaries were frozen for 7 years of austerity, and have never caught up since. Doctors and nurses now leave university with large debts to pay off.(Not like me!)

One of the biggest perks of the job was the NHS pension. In 2015 this was rearranged to save money, and ensure people have to work longer. It was not done well and this has led to some facing bizarrely massive tax bills - 5 figure sums are common.

If the pension is no longer an incentive to remain working for the NHS then medical and nursing staff can leave the NHS and do agency work. It pays a much higher rate, and you can work as much or as little as you want. It gives you control back - very attractive for parents.

So lots of folk are leaving the NHS to do agency or locum work. Once this happens we have a tipping point. There are lots of vacancies in the NHS that have to be filled by agency nurses who cost much more to employ - there are agency fees as well.

Those of us left are working in jobs with constant colleague absences. So we must work harder, often covering extra shifts at short notice. Because we have to. There is moral pressure to cover oncall gaps because the service cannot be allowed to collapse. We are all so tired.

They know that if they do not improve pay and working conditions very soon, morale will collapse and we will face mass resignations and retirements. Because when you can earn more driving an HGV than running a ward, you know your profession is in trouble.

They know that if the government wins this, nursing will collapse anyway. The junior doctors are militant. A strike vote very soon. This is about money. But it is also about working conditions. Because if conditions don't improve, the NHS will fall. The staff have had enough.

Please understand that the RCN has NEVER supported strike action. These are not militants. They are striking out of desperation. To try and make this morally bankrupt government understand that enough is enough. Because they cannot do this anymore.

I am taking my pension in 3 years. I have worked for the NHS all of my life. I have never known it anywhere near as bad as it is now. And this government are trying to blame it on the nurses. Shame on them.

Finally, don't be fooled by the comments about cost. The NHS needs more. If it doesn't get it, YOU will end up paying it somehow. Either through a new state insurance scheme. Or private insurance. Remember the UK spends 9% of GDP on healthcare. The USA spends about 15%.

All these people tweeting about how expensive the NHS should take a look overseas and see what people get for their money. Whatever happens the taxpayer will pay. I mean - who else is there?

@peteneville65 Good morning I am a journalist at ITV in Yorkshire and wondered if you would be available to chat to us regarding your comments above. You can reach the news team on 0113 2228884 or 0113 2228756. Thanks.

@itvcalendar Hi there. Sorry for the delay but I'm happy to talk if the interest is still there. Trying to deal with a mediastorm and a full-time job!

@peteneville65 @SimonBradley8 1/2 There are 133,000 NHS vacancies - quite simply, increasingly the deal doesn’t match the job NHS staff are asked to do. There’s a simple choice for any U.K. government - if you want an NHS you need to fund and staff it properly

@peteneville65 @SimonBradley8 2/2 not doing so will mean we reach, if we have not already, a tipping point. The remaining staff become increasingly stressed and traumatised (that’s not too strong a word by the way) as they do their best with less and less to care for more and more sicker and sicker patients

@peteneville65 One of the first things to do would be to bring back funded courses and bursaries for student nurses. There is no way out of this staffing crisis otherwise. Not doing it ASAP is prolonging it!!!

@peteneville65 Stopping the nursing bursary was mad!