Press Releases
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15/05/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to NHS Providers warning that scarce NHS funds are being diverted due to delays to the UK Government's 40 new hospitals programme
Executive Director of RCN England, Patricia Marquis, said: “Spending on the health service has already risen more slowly than promised and many parts of the NHS are struggling. Political parties must realise that investment in both nursing staff and the NHS are the electorate’s top priority.”
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14/05/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to the latest Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) report on NHS spending during the last Parliament
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: “When investment in the NHS fails to meet demand, it is patients who suffer greatly – even paying the highest price – and, as nursing staff, we are left to try to pick up the pieces."
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09/05/2024
Press Release
Patients suffering as prime minister fails to tackle waiting list crisis, RCN warns, as new analysis reveals decade of misery
The prime minister has been warned that patients are being failed by his inability to tackle the waiting list crisis, as new RCN analysis of NHS England data reveals a decade of growing misery and decline for patients.
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30/04/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to proposed update to NHS Constitution for England
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN Chief Nursing Officer and Deputy Chief Executive said: “Patients are already able to request intimate care from a staff member of the same sex, but in an NHS missing tens of thousands of nursing staff it is nigh-on impossible to accommodate with any consistency. It’s also important to recognise that nursing staff treat all patients with the utmost respect and professionalism, no matter their gender."
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25/04/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to Liberal Democrats figures showing that elderly patients waiting over five days on hospital trolleys in A&E
Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN Chief Nursing Officer and Deputy Chief Executive, said: “Behind these figures are people’s parents and grandparents, some of society’s most vulnerable who we’d expect to be treated with the upmost dignity. The bleak reality is that those who should be given the greatest care are deteriorating whilst left on chairs and trolleys in corridors, cupboards and side rooms for hours on end."
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25/04/2024
Press Release
NHS sickness data shows average nurse took entire week off sick last year due to stress-related illness
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: “Dangerous stress levels have become normalised inside an NHS which is unable to cope with demand. Chronic workforce shortages are putting nurses under unbearable pressure, unable to deliver the high-quality care they were trained to."
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23/04/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to passing of Rwanda Bill
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: “The Rwanda Bill is a deeply inhumane piece of legislation which represents a significant backward step in asylum and human rights policy."
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19/04/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to prime minister's 'sicknote culture' speech
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive said: “Nursing staff are the largest single workforce in health and care, but they themselves are suffering from increasingly poor long-term health. The prime minister’s overtures about ‘sicknote culture’ will be deeply offensive to a profession hit hard by long COVID and a spiralling mental health crisis. Issues of population health are not ones that a government can simply instruct away."
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17/04/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing Welcomes Health Committee's Report on Nurse Staffing Levels in Wales
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) welcomes the recommendations put forth by the Health and Social Care Committee. The RCN believes these go some way to bolstering the range and influence of the Nurse Staffing Levels (Wales) Act 2016 into the future.
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17/04/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to Supreme Court ruling that UK trade union law breaches the ECHR
RCN Director of Legal and Member Relations, Joanne Galbraith-Marten, said: “Today’s ruling is welcome news for workers as the Supreme Court recognised that our domestic legislation is not compatible with article 11 of the ECHR given the lack of protection for detriment short of dismissal in respect of those taking part in organising industrial action."
Page last updated - 21/02/2025
