Budget 2025: nursing and NHS ‘just a footnote’ despite promises to protect health care

The RCN says Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget (26 November) falls far short of the investment needed to tackle the nursing workforce crisis and protect patient care.

In our submission ahead of the Budget, we urged the Westminster government to prioritise NHS investment to transform care and drive economic growth, with nursing playing a leading role. Our submission calls for pay reform, and to recognise and empower registered nurses as autonomous professionals.

We also stressed the need for workforce planning to tackle supply and retention, deliver new investment in nurse education, support internationally educated nurses, and fund the shift to community care alongside digital improvements.

Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: “The chancellor pledged to protect the NHS, yet it was just a footnote in today’s budget.

“We desperately needed new funding to boost staffing levels and provide hope to patients, especially as we enter what could be a devastating winter. Simply declaring that there will be ‘more nurses’ won’t make it so, especially without the funding or plan to make it a reality. There are cavernous gaps in the workforce across all services and nursing staff remain deeply worried about being able to keep patients safe and deliver the care they deserve.

“Nursing is not just key to fixing the NHS but also growing the economy. As the largest workforce, nursing staff deliver the vast majority of care. We keep people healthy, out of hospital and help them back to work - every pound invested in nursing is money well spent.

“Patients and the public need to see the government’s actions match its rhetoric, and this starts with proper investment to unleash the potential in nursing. By failing to begin long-overdue reform to a broken, decades old pay system or deliver new investment to grow student nurse numbers, the chancellor has missed a serious opportunity and now the nursing workforce crisis could deepen further and put plans to create an NHS fit for the future at risk.”

The chancellor’s autumn Budget included announcements such as a freeze on NHS prescription charges, £300 million for NHS technology upgrades, and plans for 250 new Neighbourhood Health Centres to cut waiting times.

Despite pledges to prioritise the NHS, we’re warning that without significant investment to reform nursing pay and grow the workforce, the government’s ambitions to cut waiting lists and reform health services will remain out of reach.