Labour are announcing tomorrow (Wednesday 26 April 2017) a
three point election guarantee for NHS staff:
- Pay increased to a sustainable level which reflects the
complexity of the work carried out
- Safe staffing levels put into law so that finances never take
precedent over patient safety
- And fully funded education which prepares our NHS staff to be
the best in the world
After seven years of neglect by the Conservative Government,
Labour will make sure NHS staff are properly supported to provide
the best possible quality of services for patients.
Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health
Secretary, speaking at the Unison Health Conference in
Liverpool, will say:
“Our NHS staff are the very pride of Britain. Yet they are
ignored, insulted, undervalued, overworked and underpaid by this
Tory government. Not anymore. Enough is enough.
“NHS staff have been taken for granted for too long by the
Conservatives. Cuts to pay and training mean hard working
staff are being forced from NHS professions and young people are
being put off before they have even started. Now Brexit threatens
the ability of health employers to recruit from overseas.
“What is bad for NHS staff is bad for patients too. Short
staffing means reduced services and a threat to patient safety.
Labour’s new guarantees for NHS staff will help keep services
running at the standard which England’s patients expect.
“I can pledge today that a Labour government will scrap the pay
cap and give our NHS workers the pay they deserve.
“We’ll invest in their education and training. We’ll bring back
bursaries which the Tories scrapped. Our ambition is nothing less
than ensuring the best trained health staff in the world.
“This will mean better quality of care for patients as well. We
will never compromise on patient safety.
“Safe staffing levels will be a priority for a Labour Government.
After seven years of Tory mismanagement our health services are
dangerously understaffed. We are thousands short on the numbers
of nurses, midwives, GPs and paramedics that we need.
“Time and again expert reports have told us that staffing levels
are linked to patient safety but the Conservative Government has
failed to deliver the numbers of extra staff that patients need.
“So the next Labour government will legislate ensure safe
staffing levels in England’s NHS.
“We will ask NICE to undertake work to set out how safety can be
determined in different settings. And Labour will ask NICE also
to assess whether there are health settings which would benefit
from legally enforced staffing ratios.
“By bringing in a new law to make safe staffing legally
enforceable, Labour will ensure that finances never again take
precedent over patient safety.
“And let me be clear we won’t make promises on behalf of the NHS
without giving the NHS the resources and the tools to deliver
those promises. The NHS under Labour will always get the funding
it needs. That’s the difference between Labour and the Tories on
patient safety.”
Notes to editors
Increasing NHS pay to a sustainable level:
- · Labour
will lift the 1 percent NHS pay cap imposed by the Government
which is artificially holding NHS wages below inflation and
causing a health recruitment crisis
- · Labour
would make a return to public sector pay agreed through
collective bargaining and the evidence of independent pay review
bodies.
- · The
move will help to address staffing shortages in the NHS by
improving morale and increasing retention of staff, reducing the
current reliance of health employers on agency staff and overseas
recruitment
Legislating for safe staffing:
- · Labour
will introduce legislation requiring NHS trusts to have regard
for patient safety when setting staffing levels in their
hospitals.
- · Labour
will ask NICE to recommence work to support trusts to judge
safety in different settings. This work was started in November
2013 but then dropped under the current Government in June 2015.
Labour will reinforce the work carried out by NICE by giving it a
new legal basis.
- · Labour
will ask NICE to assess whether there are health settings which
would benefit from legally enforced staffing ratios.
- · This
new legislation will ensure that patient safety always takes
priority over financial considerations when staffing levels are
being set in England’s NHS.
Fully funded education for health professions:
- · Labour
will reinstate funding and other support for students of health
related degrees
- · The
move will incentivise more young people to train to work in our
NHS so that health employers can access the numbers of staff they
need to keep patients safe
- · Labour
will commission evidence on the equality impact of the Tories’
decision to remove funding from degrees predominantly taken by
older and female students and will review what other support can
help mature students to undertake health degrees
