We the undersigned call on Boris Johnson to ensure that any pay rise for MPs is accompanied by a pay rise for nurses, carers and similar NHS workers, who suffered and died to protect us all during the first wave of coronavirus.

This week IPSA, the body who decides MP’s pay, decided to award MPs a pay increase of £3,300 this year, bringing their basic annual salary to almost £82,000.

With expenses and freebies, MP’s effective salaries are well over £100,000.

Meanwhile Boris Johnson’s government has specifically excluded nurses and carers in care homes from the recent public sector pay rises.

The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank said not including nurses and carers was “unforgivable” and an “unjustifiable snub”.

Nurses and other NHS workers are being forced to use food banks and many of their children are living in poverty. There is a growing exodus of burnt out nurses leaving the NHS.

Stories from the frontline talked of nurses battling to save lives from coronavirus in ICU in the day time, and then returning to use a foodbank in the evening.

This is a scandal from a Prime Minister who stood outside No. 10 every Thursday and 'clapped for carers', but now will not speak or listen to them. Nurses and NHS workers like the ones who saved his life.

Those nurses and carers cannot feed their children with claps.

More importantly, the last thing any of us needs is an exodus of burned out, disillusioned NHS staff, just as a second wave of COVID19 hits us. And the NHS already has 40,000 vacancies!

If enough of us get behind this petition now we can pressure Boris to engage with NHS worker unions who are calling on him to come back to the table, now.

We call on Boris Johnson to give NHS workers the real payrise they need. If MPs are worth a payrise then nurses and NHS workers should get one too.