Responding to the Health and Social Care Secretary and Prime Minister meeting on NHS winter pressures, RCN Chief Nurse, Professor Nicola Ranger, said:
"Nurses are always ready to look after patients, particularly in winter but we also need to face the reality that these pressures are all year round.
“Solutions such as extra beds and virtual wards are of course needed but that all requires a skilled workforce - of which nursing is an essential part.
“We need to have a long-term conversation of how we protect the NHS whatever the time of year so we do not need to reach this point every winter, investing in the nursing workforce must be at the heart of this.”
