Image source, PA Media

Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) has been granted exemptions to ease the pressure on its services during the bank holiday nursing strike.

The London children's hospital expressed "serious concerns" about staffing as Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members prepare to walk out.

During the strike from Sunday to Monday, nurses in the RCN union will not provide emergency care in A&E.

The RCN previously said it would not agree to derogations.

But union leader Pat Cullen said mitigations were granted on Friday following a request from GOSH, insisting nurses working at the hospital would "never ever" leave child patients at risk.

According to NHS England, the "business continuity incident" announced by GOSH is defined as any event likely to disrupt delivery of services from "acceptable predefined levels".

This includes severe weather, flooding and fires, industrial action and cyber attacks, and it can lead to the declaration of a major or critical incident.

Ms Cullen said any suggestion that mitigations were not being put in place were "factually incorrect".

'Scaremongering'

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "All of the exemptions that Great Ormond Street requested of the Royal College of Nursing were granted earlier yesterday.

"None of those exemptions were turned down," she said. "It is really important for the public to know that and it is also really important for the staff that work there to know that."

"The most fantastic nurses work at Great Ormond Street Hospital and I do not want to be scaremongering them that we have put a process in place that they would all walk out on their patients, that would never be the case."

The protocol surrounding exemptions requires the RCN to pass its approval on to NHS England, which is then responsible for notifying the individual organisation, Ms Cullen said.

Ms Cullen added that any derogations being sought by other organisations would be given "very careful consideration" to ensure critical areas of care can continue.

Mat Shaw, the hospital's chief executive, had said: "We respect the right of our staff to take part in lawful industrial action, but after exhausting all options, at the moment we have serious concerns over how we will safely staff our hospital during the strike."

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