Responding to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s comments that all Government departments will have to make efficiency savings, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Pat Cullen, said:
“If the new Chancellor is serious about spending money more wisely, then he must invest in the nursing workforce.
“Asking the Department of Health to make yet more efficiencies – in order words, to cut costs – when the need to invest in the NHS and social care is greater than ever, does not make sense.
“Mr Hunt must put patients first. The nursing workforce crisis is undermining safe patient care and with many choosing to leave the profession for better-paid jobs elsewhere, the need to pay a demoralised and unvalued profession fairly could not be more pressing.
“These considerations must be uppermost in Mr Hunt’s mind as he announces the Government’s economic reset.”
