29 April 2006
Mike Penning has tabled a motion in the House of Commons supporting the Royal College of Nursing’s ‘Keep Nurses Working, Keep Patients Safe’ campaign.

Mike Penning has tabled a motion in the House of Commons supporting the Royal College of Nursing’s ‘Keep Nurses Working, Keep Patients Safe’ campaign.

On 26th April, Mike Penning, MP for Hemel Hempstead, tabled an Early Day Motion in support of the Royal College of Nursing’s ‘Keep Nurses Working, Keep Patients Safe’ campaign. The campaign will culminate in a rally and lobby in Parliament on 11th May.

In the text of the Early Day Motion, Mike Penning ‘notes with growing concern the impact of deficits on patient care and nursing posts, with NHS trusts freezing posts, delaying treatment and issuing compulsory redundancies to nurses and other healthcare staff to tackle deficits or balance books’.

“In Hemel Hempstead, we have seen first-hand the effects of having healthcare decisions made by accountants,” he said. “I fully support the nurses in this campaign, they are right to be concerned about the long-term effects to the NHS.”

The Early Day Motion ‘calls on the Government to take urgent action to prevent long-term damage to patient care through the effects of short-term cuts by implementing a deficits recovery plan’.