The new health secretary must make nursing pay reform an immediate priority, the RCN said.

Yvette Cooper has been appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care by Prime Minister Andy Burnham. She will succeed James Murray, who was appointed to the role in May following Wes Streeting’s resignation.

Responding to the appointment, Professor Nicola Ranger, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, welcomed Ms Cooper to the role and urged her to prioritise investment in the nursing workforce and pay reform.

Ms Cooper became an MP in 1997 and has held several senior ministerial positions during her parliamentary career, including health minister, housing minister, chief secretary to the Treasury, and home secretary. Previous to this appointment, she served as foreign secretary from September 2025.

Nicola said: "From her time at the Foreign Office, she will be used to dealing with big challenges and on her first day in the job she will find there is no shortage of them in health and care. Corridor care is rife across hospitals, people are struggling to access care out in the community, and mental health services are overwhelmed. As the performance of the NHS stutters, she will soon see the size of the job.”

Nicola said that Ms Cooper must put nursing pay reform at the top of her agenda, which has been “so neglected for decades”. She said: “This cannot stand any longer if she is to get the NHS back on track and fix adult social care.”

"This is a golden opportunity to invest in nursing, to modernise an outdated NHS pay structure, make nursing a more attractive career and build a workforce that can finally deliver the care patients deserve."

Nicola said nursing staff are ready to help drive improvements across the health and care system but warned that workforce shortages remain a major barrier. "Nursing staff see every day how patients are being failed and they're hungry for change, standing ready with the solutions to help deliver it. Central to the new secretary of state's success will be tackling a workforce crisis caused by sustained underinvestment,” she said.

The Westminster government committed to a review of all band 5 nursing roles in England earlier this year. We believe progress must be swift to ensure nursing staff see real improvements in career progression, recognition and pay.

We’re also reiterating our demand for ministers to provide the funding necessary to deliver wider structural reform to Agenda for Change.

This week, we told the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham he must back nursing and invest to tackle the workforce crisis, including by turning around declining pay.

Image: Yvette Cooper ©House of Commons, CC BY 3.0