Responding the chancellor's Budget speech, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, Professor Nicola Ranger,  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.”