Stephen Morgan MP has called on the Health Secretary on behalf of the Royal College of Nursing to deliver on pay and other priorities for local nurses.
The action follows the Portsmouth MP meeting local nurses and their representatives to hear their experiences and insights into the challenges they are facing, both now and before the pandemic.
It comes as the government issued a real terms pay cut to over 23,000 key workers in Portsmouth, outlined during the Chancellor’s Budget announcement last week, many of which will be nurses who have been working on the front line of the national battle against COVID-19.
The local parliamentary representative has written to the government demanding assurances on behalf of local nurses in Portsmouth and the wider region on a range of issues raised with him, including:
- accountability for workforce supply and planning in law
- nursing higher education
- and fair pay.
Stephen Morgan, Member of Parliament for Portsmouth South, commented:
“Our NHS nurses have for too long been let down by this government. They were doing a phenomenal job before this pandemic but stepped up in our hour of need in the face of adversity.
“There are issues here that existed long before the arrival of COVID-19, which have been continually ignored by government, but to then issue a real-terms pay cut to our nurses in last week’s Budget is completely unacceptable.
“I will continue to take action to ensure our local nurses get the answers they need from Ministers.”
