Hancock defends manifesto pledge
A “MISREADING” of the Tory manifesto may have resulted in people thinking they are pledging 50,000 “new” nurses if they win the General Election, Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan said.
Her comments came just moments after Health Secretary Matt Hancock insisted there will indeed be 50,000 more nurses and 40 new hospitals under a Conservative government.
The veracity of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s General Election manifesto promises have been called into question, with Labour saying the nursing figure was disingenuous when it included 19,000 nurses who the Tories wanted to re-train, and another 12,000 from overseas.
It means only 19,000 posts would be filled by new nurse trainees enjoying the return of maintenance grants – bursaries scrapped by former Tory chancellor George Osborne.
After unveiling a poster in Westminster with a picture of Jeremy Corbyn and the words “Prime Ditherer”, Mr Hancock said: “What we’ve got is a really clear manifesto to get Brexit done and then concentrate on the domestic priorities of people, for instance 50,000 more nurses, 40 new hospitals, 6,000 more GPs. These are all costed deliverable commitments.”
Pressed on whether there will be 50,000 more nurses than the current number, Mr Hancock said: “Precisely. 50,000 more nurses. There’s currently just over 280,000 nurses in the NHS and our commitment is to take that to just over 330,000 nurses in the NHS.”
Mrs Morgan joined Mr Hancock at the poster in Westminster and said there are “lots of different ways” to make sure that in 2025 there will be “50,000 more nurses”.
Mrs Morgan said: “I think there’s been a confusion sometimes, people reading that as 50,000 new nurses.
“I think sometimes that’s a deliberate confusion and sometimes that’s just a genuine misreading of the manifesto.”
Asked if she would agree there is confusion created by her party’s wording relating to this pledge, Mrs Morgan said: “No. Because I think 50,000 more couldn’t be clearer, but actually I think an awful lot of people have decided to say that there is a confusion.
“It’s not. 50,000 more means 50,000 more nurses by 2025.”
The 40 hospital pledge has come in for criticism after it emerged that while £2.7 billion has been allocated to six hospital trusts for building projects for completion by 2025, the other 34 projects for delivery by 2030 have so far just been promised £100 million of “seed funding”.
Mr Hancock has said the “seed funding” will allow hospital trusts to carry out design and planning work in preparation for the moment funds become available to start construction.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “The Conservatives’ claim on nurses is frankly deceitful – the sums simply don’t add up.”