Responding to the plan from the Prime Minister, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Professor Nicola Ranger, said:
“Patients are waiting too long for treatment and modernisation in the NHS is needed. But the missing link in all of this is the nursing workforce. Nursing is crucial to a better future for health and social care, but there are tens of thousands of vacancies across every part of the system and every region in England. Nursing staff support patients' right to choose, but they know all too well that choosing between two understaffed services is a false choice.
“Nursing delivers the majority of care and is central to the government’s mission. We desperately need new investment in our workforce otherwise all attempts to improve patient care and modernise the NHS will never get off the ground.”
Ends
