A wish list for the new health secretary

With the arrival of a new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, thoughts always turn to how those on the front-line will be affected by the change. Understandably, the COVID-19 pandemic will dominate Sajid Javid's early days in office – and then there is the mammoth task of integrating the social care system into the health service – but what if, for a moment, we imagine we had 30 seconds with him to give an ‘elevator pitch’ explaining what practice nurses need from him. What would your wish list be?

Top of the list for most people working in health care is likely to be pay. With much focus on the pitiful pay rise for NHS workers after dealing with the pandemic, those working outside of NHS contracts have been forgotten. Something needs to be done about general practice nurse pay, terms and conditions, and the upcoming pay body review will not affect this as practice nurse pay is determined locally or on a practice by practice basis. Change in this area is difficult and can only come from the top. Maybe a review into this topic would be a good place to start.