More people will be eligible for free private treatment thanks to new NHS regulations. Prior to the General Election, Wes Streeting promised that nurses with joint pain will receive free private healthcare. Labour has stated that this will enable them to resume treating patients.

"You can kick us out after five years if we haven't delivered," Mr. Streeting stated to the publication The Sun. Please consider giving change a chance. In a vicious loop, a record number of physicians and nurses are absent from work due to back and joint discomfort while awaiting treatment, which lengthens the wait time, according to Mr. Streeting.

“Labour has agreed a partnership with charity Nuffield Health, who will provide joint pain rehab for 4,000 NHS staff a year free of charge." The Labour Party MP went on and said: "We will get NHS staff back to work, so they can put Britain back to work.”

NHS England data shows that for nursing staff, the proportion of sick days attributed to stress, anxiety, depression and other psychological illnesses increased from 21.0 per cent in 2022 to 24.3 per cent last year, in 2023.

The RCN says a chronic workforce crisis is driving the pressure on staff. Professor Pat Cullen, RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive, said: “Dangerous stress levels have become normalised inside an NHS which is unable to cope with demand. Chronic workforce shortages are putting nurses under unbearable pressure, unable to deliver the high-quality care they were trained to. To make matters worse, low pay means they can’t make ends meet when they go home. It is no way to treat our safety-critical profession.

‘’Nursing staff are the single largest workforce group in the NHS but they are running on empty. Government and NHS leaders need to stop normalising poor mental health amongst staff and take action to ease the pressure and boost recruitment and retention. A long term workforce plan built on the backs of broken staff isn’t worth the paper it’s written on."