NHS faces employees exodus as one in 5 to stop if Tories sneak again in
Patients have been warned there will be an exodus of NHS staff if the Tories are re-elected on Thursday.
One in five health service workers are thinking about quitting if Rishi Sunak returns to No10 as PM. Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting appealed to hospital staff to “stay and help Labour rebuild the NHS”.
Doctors and nurses have warned the health service is at breaking point after 14 years of Tory rule. Hospital waiting lists have risen to 7.6million, according to the latest figures. A five-day strike by junior doctors will come to an end on Tuesday at 7am. It is the 11th walkout in their long-running pay dispute.
A survey of over 1,000 NHS employees found as many as 22% are set to leave if the Tories sneak back in. The poll conducted by Find Out Now showed that 15% say they will definitely quit with another 7% saying they will consider going if the Conservatives are re-elected for a further five years.
The findings would mean that 296,000 of the 1.3million NHS staff in hospitals and community healthcare in England could be set to walk out of the service for good.
There are already 101,000 vacancies across the NHS in England under the Tories.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “The Conservatives treat NHS staff with contempt because they have given up on the NHS. If Rishi Sunak sneaks back in for another five years, staff won’t just walk out on strike, they will walk out on the NHS altogether.
“Patients can’t afford to lose invaluable doctors and nurses, there aren’t enough as it is. This is just confirmation that if the Conservative win another five years, the chaos in the NHS will continue, and waiting lists will rise to 10 million.”
He added: “Only Labour has a plan to turn around the NHS, starting with 40,000 extra appointments a week, funded with £1billion that will go straight into the pockets of NHS staff. My message to NHS staff is: stay in the NHS and help us rebuild it.”
Mr Sunak faced groans in the first head-to-head TV debate of the election campaign when he tried to blame hard-pressed doctors and nurses going on strikes for NHS waiting lists. The PM was laughed at as he tried to claim he was bringing waits down. Keir Starmer told Mr Sunak, “it’s somebody else’s fault”, as he blamed industrial action held by NHS workers.
Find Out Now interviewed 1,025 NHS employees on June 25 and 26.
