Press Releases
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04/04/2024
Press Release
Nursing union slams prime minister’s 'misleading and inaccurate' comments on nursing pay
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: "Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members rejected the government’s pay offer last year, an offer that was the lowest in the public sector. We remain in a formal trade dispute over pay. Our profession will be greatly angered hearing your comments which sought to take credit for a pay offer that was not accepted."
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01/04/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine showing scale of excess deaths caused by long waits in NHS emergency departments
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive said: “This crisis is taking lives and nursing staff in England’s hospitals are forced to witness it every shift. Go into any hospital, the corridors and cupboards are packed with patients – care is not only undignified but fatally unsafe. One nurse told me a lady had died on a trolley in a corridor and it went unnoticed far too long – that is the current state of our health service."
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01/04/2024
Press Release
Majority of voters urge government to deliver above inflation pay rise for NHS nursing staff
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: “The public trusts our profession more than any other and they overwhelmingly agree that nursing staff deserve a proper pay rise. Ministers who claim to be committed to the public’s priorities should now act upon them."
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27/03/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to the British Social Attitudes Survey on public satisfaction with the NHS
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive said: "Nursing staff will respond with mixed emotion today – great sorrow that we have sunk this low and hope that the public shares their view that ‘enough is enough’. It did not have to be this way and it did not start with the pandemic either."
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26/03/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to the Institute for Fiscal Studies report 'Recent trends in public sector pay'
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive said: “This report should be essential reading for government ministers. With repeated below-inflation pay awards, and the lowest pay deal in the entire public sector last year, ministers exposed nursing staff to a brutal cost of living crisis."
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26/03/2024
Press Release
RCN to new First Minister: Three Urgent Steps to Rescue Welsh NHS
Helen Whyley, Director of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Wales, has written to the First Minister calling for immediate action in three key areas to protect patients and secure the future of nursing in Wales.
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25/03/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to an announcement from the Department of Health and Social Care about one-off payments for more healthcare workers
RCN Director for England Patricia Marquis said: “After a year of campaigning, this progress is a huge leap forward. They deliver NHS care and deserve the same treatment."
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22/03/2024
Press Release
Half of England’s nursing staff could quit as new analysis reveals impact of decade-long attack on nursing pay
Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: “This new analysis exposes the scale of the government’s sustained attack on nursing. Over a decade of below inflation pay offers, followed last year by the lowest award in the entire public sector, have caused hardship and forced thousands to consider quitting altogether."
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22/03/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to the National Audit Office report on NHS England’s modelling for the Long Term Workforce Plan
RCN Director for England Patricia Marquis said: “This NAO report may not be damning, but this credible intervention asks the government and NHS to ‘revisit’ their ill-founded optimism. Since the workforce plan was published less than a year ago, student nurse numbers have already dropped twice – taking England’s NHS further from safe staffing levels."
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20/03/2024
Press Release
Royal College of Nursing responds to Public Accounts Committee report ‘Reforming adult social care in England’
RCN Transformational Lead for the Independent Health and Social Care Sector Claire Sutton said: “Social care is gripped by devastating workforce shortages whilst staff working in the sector take home up to a third less pay than their colleagues in the NHS. As demand for social care services continues to increase, the government has serious questions to answer as to why there is no social care workforce strategy to speak of."
Page last updated - 23/09/2024
