RCN response to Autumn statement
Published: 05 December 2012
For immediate release: Wednesday 4 December 2012
RCN response to Autumn statement
The Royal College of Nursing today (4 December) responded to Chancellor George Osborne’s Autumn Statement. Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive & General Secretary of the RCN, said:
“Nurses will welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to national pay arrangements in the NHS. We now hope that experiments such as South West pay consortium will come to a natural end. The RCN has long been arguing that the pitfalls of regional pay are numerous and represent nothing more than an attack on nursing staff at a time when resources are stretched. National pay arrangements are a fair and flexible way of ensuring that the right staff are in the right place to deliver quality care for patients.”
On the one percent pay rise, Dr Carter said:
“We recognise the reality that public finances are stretched, however, nurses have already been hit by a two year pay freeze at a time of rising living costs and a greatly increased workload because of staff cuts and NHS reforms. Our evidence shows that NHS staff have endured a real terms pay cut of up to nine percent in the last two year. A rise of one per cent will do little to improve the morale of an over-stretched workforce.”
On the recycling of efficiency savings, Dr Carter added:
“Nurses are working hard to find the £20bn in savings in England on the basis that it will be reinvested back into frontline care. However, there is currently little evidence that this is happening and almost £3 billion of it was recently clawed back by the Treasury. The reality is that nursing, unlike other clinical professions, has not been protected. We know that more than 7,000 nursing posts have gone since 2010 and that many staff are completely over-stretched and unable to deliver the quality of patient care they would wish to provide.”
Ends
Notes for Editors
1. For further information, please contact the RCN Media Office on 020 7647 3633, press.office@rcn.org.uk or visit http://www.rcn.org.uk/newsevents/media
2. The 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 nursing staff 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.