We Need to Change the Way Power Flows in the NHS says Nick Clegg

Speaking at the Royal College of Nursing’s conference in Bournemouth today, Nick Clegg said:

“I am wholly committed, head and heart, to keeping our NHS, free when people need it and paid for by us all. But you and I also know that’s the easy bit to say.

“It is right to celebrate nursing and the NHS as a whole, but it doesn’t deal with the central issue I know worries every one of you.

“The real question that politicians now have to answer is not: How much do you love the NHS? It’s, how do you protect and improve the NHS at a time like this?

“We need to change the way power flows in the NHS.

“You should be telling us how to run it, not the other way around.

“It is only the skills, innovation and ideas of the nursing staff of our health service that can protect it from the cuts you fear.”