When my daughter was born more than eight weeks early, and lived in the hospital for her first six weeks in 2011, nurses helped to save her life. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, a breast cancer nurse was with me every step of the way through my recovery, and we still keep in touch. Today, I live with Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia and chronic asthma and rely on the NHS every day – that’s why I will be on the picket line supporting striking nurses. I know the strikes might affect my care in the weeks to come, but this action is needed to keep patients like me safe. Nurses aren’t just going on strike for themselves, they are striking to preserve the NHS for all of us. The nurses who have looked after me have always provided incredible personal care and real empathy, combined with health expertise that I could not live without. I have seen first-hand just how much they care about their jobs and patients. I know how hard the decision to go on strike must have been for them – a last resort measure to protect their lives and the lives of those they are looking after. We have to listen to nurses when they tell us that their wards are understaffed and their patients are in danger. They understand the risks better than anyone, and they feel bad when they have finished a shift after not giving everyone the care they deserve, because they do not have enough staff to do so. If we don’t pay nurses enough to live on, nurses will leave the NHS, others will not be incentivised to train, and the situation will only get worse. Nurses are unable to pay their bills after years of no proper pay rises. It’s not right that some nurses are forced to use food banks, and that their pay doesn’t even meet the basic cost of living. We all clapped for carers during the pandemic, but what did that really mean if the government won’t pay nurses enough to live on now? It sends a message that we don’t value the work they are doing, and when I think about all of the ways that nurses have looked after me and my family over the years, I’m devastated to think how unappreciated they must feel. That’s why I’ll be standing on the picket line with nurses today, to show them I care for them as much as they’ve cared for me. I won’t be the only patient showing support for them. Patient-led campaign group Just Treatment has signed up more than 600 patients to stand with nurses on picket lines, and collected thousands more messages to pass on to them. I’ll join nurses at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, where teams helped save my daughter’s life when she was born, as a way of saying thank you. This government is using patients like me to argue against nurses striking, pointing to the effect strikes will have on us. But I already know I may not be able to access care from nurses while this action is taken, and I know the MRI scans I am waiting on may be delayed. I also know nurses are the ones fighting for my care to improve. They are fighting for more nurses on wards, more NHS funding and a higher quality of care for all of us after years of government cuts. Nurses are fighting for my life, and for your life, like they have always done. So I will join them on the picket line as they demand the pay rise they deserve. Melanie Duddridge is an NHS patient-activist