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The Labour Party has pledged to give NHS staff a pay rise if it wins the UK general election, as it seeks to put health at the forefront of its campaign.
The party will also legislate for minimum staffing levels in NHS trusts to prevent finances taking precedent over patient safety, and it plans to reinstate student bursaries for nurses and midwives if it wins the election on 8 June.
Unveiling the proposals in a speech at the Unison Health Conference in Liverpool on Wednesday 26 April, Labour's shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said that NHS staff had been "ignored, insulted, undervalued, overworked, and underpaid" by the Conservative government.
A Labour government would scrap the current government's 1% cap on staff pay that was artificially holding NHS wages below inflation and causing a recruitment crisis, Ashworth said. It would also seek to boost the number of nurses, midwives, and GPs and reinstate student...