Responding to Labour Party plans to clear the NHS backlog, Executive Director of RCN England, Patricia Marquis, said:
“Nursing staff will be pleased to hear a commitment to bring down waiting lists. They want the best for their patients and expect politicians to want the same.
“Across NHS settings, nursing staff provide the vast majority of care but we’re missing tens of thousands. Labour’s plan to tackle the backlog is urgent and necessary, but it cannot simply rely on asking an already burnt-out workforce to do more with less.
“For Labour's promised historic expansion of the NHS workforce, we need more detail. With thousands of staff leaving the health service each year and nursing applications plummeting, only action to raise pay and abolish tuition fees will revitalise the profession and help reduce waiting lists.”
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