‘Pay is the significant issue’: RCN general secretary addresses crises facing health service

“Pay is the significant issue ” the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing said at a Labour conference event just hours before the union voted against a 5.5% pay award on Monday.

Speaking at LabourList event in partnership with the British Medical Association and the RCN, Nicola Ranger said “there is no NHS without its workforce, and there is no workforce without nurses.”

It came just hours before the RCN announced that its members had voted against a 5.5% increase – although this vote is not expected to lead to strike action.

The panel, which included MPs and union leaders, discussed the workforce crisis in the NHS and what possible resolutions could be on the horizon.

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Birmingham Erdington MP and former nurse Paulette Hamilton spoke in favour of mental health support for frontline healthcare staff, saying: “I absolutely believe in every single area there should be some sort of mental health and wellbeing support for clinical staff that they can access anonymously if they want to.”

Professor Philip Banfield, BMA Council chair, added: “I don’t know anyone that works in the NHS that isn’t up for reform, and to make the NHS something that is fit for the 21st century.”

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The question of NHS reform is likely to be among the biggest challenges faced by the new Labour government, with record high waiting lists and record low public satisfaction in the service widely reported.

“The real challenge is what happened and what has happened after the pandemic. Those staff for two and a half years truly sacrificed, and there’s been no real recognition of what we’ve done, what they’ve seen,” Ranger said.

“The NHS staff went through equivalent of a war with what they saw, what they did, what they sacrificed.”

Follow all of the news and debate at party conference 2024 by LabourList here, the leading dedicated platform for Labour supporters on all things Labour. 

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