UK general election: meet the three new nurse MPs
Posted 05 July 2024 - 15:59
Former nursing leader Pat Cullen, adult nurse Kevin McKenna and mental health nurse Sojan Joseph get ready to take up parliamentary office, while others lose out
Three nurses have won seats in the UK general election as the Labour Party stormed to victory in a landslide.
While a mental health nurse and a former matron took seats for Labour, former RCN general secretary Pat Cullen won for Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland. and retired district nurse Paulette Hamilton held her seat in Birmingham Erdington.
But Conservative minister and cancer nurse Maria Caulfield lost her seat, and Queen’s Nurse Ellen Nicholson failed to secure a seat for the Liberal Democrats.
New prime minister Sir Keir Starmer pledges to ‘rebuild Britain’ for nurses, carers and others
Addressing the nation at Downing Street, new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer pledged to ‘rebuild Britain’ and said for too long ‘we’ve turned a blind eye as million slid into greater insecurity’.
‘Nurses, builders, drivers, carers, people doing the right thing, working harder every day recognised at moments like this before, but as soon as the cameras stop rolling their lives are ignored. I want to say very clearly to those people, not this time,’ he added.
Pat Cullen, former nurses’ union leader
Pat Cullen vowed to put ‘both feet forward’ in her new role as the Sinn Fein MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone in Northern Ireland.
The ex-nursing leader announced she would step down as general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing in May to stand as a candidate in the UK’s most marginal seat.
Ms Cullen, who led the RCN in historic NHS nurses’ strike in 2023, increased her party’s majority to 4,571 votes.
Announcing her decision to run for the Westminster seat, Ms Cullen pledged to support better funding for public services and to reject ‘years of cruel Tory cuts’.
Nurses in Northern Ireland will be hoping she will be a voice for better pay and improved working conditions there.
Kevin McKenna, adult nurse
Adult nurse and former strategy programme manager at NHS England, Kevin McKenna has become and MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey in Kent.
He narrowly beat Conservative candidate Aisha Cuthbert by just 355 votes.
Mr McKenna qualified as a nurse in the late 1990s, later specialising in general intensive care and in 2009, set up a post-anaesthetic care unit at University College London Hospital.
During the pandemic he worked as a matron at the NHS Nightingale in London.
Mr McKenna said his priorities will be a determination to ‘get the NHS back on its feet’ and to improve access to services and the health outcomes of populations in coastal communities.
Sojan Joseph, mental health nurse
Mental health nurse and former local councillor Sojan Joseph won the seat of Ashford in Kent for Labour by 1,779 votes.
Mr Joseph started his career as a nurse at William Harvey Hospital in Kent and later became head of mental health nursing at Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care and Partnership Trust.
The new MP said his priorities for the health service are:
- Improved access to mental health services.
- Quicker access to GP and dentistry services.
- Reduced NHS waiting times.
- Use of early diagnostic and treatment technologies.
- Collaborative working with social care for safe hospital discharges.
- Improving access to mental health services.
He said: ‘It’s time for the healing to begin. I have served the NHS for the past 22 years and am now ready to serve.’
Nurses who lost out in the general election
Cancer nurse and former Conservative MP Maria Caulfield lost her seat of Lewes in East Sussex to the Liberal Democrats.
The former junior health and social care minister had previously told Nursing Standard she planned to return to nursing if she were to lose her seat. The cancer nurse continued to work shifts twice a month in her local trust while she was an MP.
And Queen’s Nurse Ellen Nicholson ran unsuccessfully in Runnymede and Weybridge in Surrey.
In other news