The government has announced a £1 billion dedicated fund to turn around emergency care.
Nursing staff have been left puzzled after the government announced 5,000 new hospital beds but no more staff.
NHS England announced 800 new ambulances and staggering 5,000 more hospital beds earlier this week in an attempt to “recover” urgent and emergency care in England.
However, with nearly 50,000 unfilled nursing vacancies across the NHS, nursing staff quickly took to social media to express their confusion over the lack of a plan to bolster the number of nurses and other healthcare workers required to open new beds.
One nurse questioned how the hospital beds would be staffed, warning that without additional staff, “already short-staffed wards” would be “further diluted”.
The announcement comes just over a week before nursing staff in England and Wales are set to take strike action for the third time in two months.
Meaningless soundbites.
Nurses United UK have also called out the plans, dubbing them “meaningless soundbites”.
Lead organiser Anthony Johnson responded to the news, “Everybody who actually works in our NHS knows we don’t have the staff to run our services now let alone with this Government’s outlandish plans.
“It’s just meaningless soundbites because a general election is coming. The Conservatives need to negotiate with unions so that we can recruit and retain more of our staff rather than lying to the public in an attempt to win votes.
“We have a serious crisis in our NHS which calls for serious plans. It is time for us to step up our action to protect our patients and ask more of our colleagues to join the pickets next week.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak added: “If we meet this ambition, it will represent one of the fastest and longest sustained improvements in emergency waiting times in NHS history. I am determined to deliver this so that families across the country can get the care they need.”
