Responding to an announcement from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) about a new pilot scheme to expand patient choice, Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said:
“Patients deserve choice, but wherever they go they will find vacant nursing posts and overstretched services - with nursing staff under relentless pressure and chronic shortages across every setting.
"Today’s announcement does nothing to change the 34,000 nurse vacancies in England's NHS. While patients are supposedly being given choice, nursing staff are choosing to leave the profession for jobs overseas where they are valued and paid fairly.
“The government must face the truth head on and acknowledge that bringing and keeping waiting lists down requires investment in the nursing workforce. Tinkering around the edges will do nothing."
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