The government’s ‘sacking nurses Bill’ is a total insult to the dedicated professionals it had been clapping less than three years ago, says Northumberland Labour.

Deputy leader Liz Simpson said: “It has taken the government less than three years to go from clapping on the doorstep during the pandemic for our amazing and dedicated professionals to blaming them for everything that’s wrong with the NHS.

“From listening to many health professionals and the staff who support them I know they go to work to provide the kind of care they would want for themselves and their families. The truth is their earnings have gone backwards in real terms with 13 years of wage freezes.

“It’s high time the government realised that the position we are now in – industrial unrest on a mass scale – is entirely down to them. You cannot keep stripping away people’s terms and conditions and expect them to take it lying down. The government’s callous Bill is the result of their mismanagement of the NHS for over a decade.

“Our NHS used to be the envy of the world and it still can be if there is party in power which values the NHS  and puts the people of this country, not profit, first.

“Labour wants to see more nurses, doctors, allied professionals and support staff being recruited and truly valued for the work they do so that we keep our well-trained, talented staff and they never get to the stage where they feel that strike action is their only option.”