RCN warns of true cost of balancing NHS books
Published: 30 August 2007
Responding to the publication of the NHS finance figures Dr Peter Carter, General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said: "It is, of course, very important that the NHS is on a firm financial footing but we have to ask at what cost this has been achieved?
"In our view freezing and deleting health workers’ posts, cutting services to patients and raiding training budgets is not the right way to balance the books. We now have a curious situation where the NHS is forecasting a surplus of nearly a billion pounds but is unable to find jobs for thousands of newly-qualified nurses desperate to put their new found skills and commitment to work. At the same time nurses already working on hospital wards and in the community have seen their workloads increase as they are expected to do ever more with even fewer resources.
"If there is taxpayers' money laying idle in NHS banks accounts let us put it to good use by investing it in frontline staff and getting thousands of newly-qualified nurses into work.”
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Notes to Editors
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Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is the voice of nursing across the UK and is the largest professional union of nursing staff in the world. The RCN promotes the interest of nurses and patients on a wide range of issues and helps shape healthcare policy by working closely with the UK Government and other national and international institutions, trade unions, professional bodies and voluntary organisations.