Nurses voted to go on strike for the first time in the history of the NHS this week. Another unwanted record for the Conservatives.
No one can blame nurses, who are overworked, understaffed and burnt out. Nor can we continue to rely on goodwill alone – research from my office found nurses worked an average of £2,000 unpaid overtime last year.
Alongside other NHS workers, they slog their guts out day in day out to keep us all alive and healthy.
Lions led by donkeys.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay was good enough to meet the Royal College of Nursing general secretary Pat Cullen this week. About time too. He spent the summer dodging their calls and refusing requests to meet.
Look at where that got him. Lastminute.com Steve now says “these are economically challenging times”. Whose fault is that?! The Conservatives crashed the economy and nurses and patients pay the price.
The Conservatives have given up on governing. They should stand aside and let Labour fix this mess.
There wasn’t a single strike across the NHS during the 13 years Labour was last in government.
We achieved the lowest ever waiting times for patients, the highest patient satisfaction in history, and paid staff fair wages. We could do that because we grew the economy.
If the Tories had grown the economy by as much as the last Labour government, there would be £30billion more to spend on public services and put back into people’s pockets.
It’s not just pay that has driven nurses to this point. When I visit hospitals, the first thing they tell me about is the shortages of staff. Nurses go home at the end of the day exhausted and worried that their patients haven’t received the care they deserve.
One nurse told me that the problem cannot be solved overnight.
She went through the training process herself so she knows first hand that it takes years to train a nurse and longer for doctors. But she just needs to know that the cavalry is coming. That things will get better.
The cavalry is coming with Labour.
We will launch the biggest expansion of medical training in the history of the NHS so it has the staff it needs. We will double the number of medical school places and train thousands more nurses and midwives every year. All paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status, which allows people to avoid paying their fair share of tax in Britain. Rishi Sunak knows a thing or two about this. His family used this loophole for years.
The NHS is in the biggest crisis in its history. Patients can’t get a GP appointment, operation, or an ambulance when they need one. The Government must negotiate with the RCN, avoid disruption to patient care, and give the NHS the staff it needs.
