The nurses who have claimed election victory

Three nurses have won seats as MPs in their local constituencies following yesterday’s general election.

Conservative MP Maria Caulfield, a cancer research nurse at the Royal Marsden hospital in London, has won with a 38% share and 19,206 votes for Lewes in East Sussex. She successfully ousted Liberal Democrat Norman Baker, who had been MP for Lewes since 1997.

Ms Caulfield has led a breast cancer research team as a research sister since 2004 and says she believes ‘protecting local NHS services is a priority’.

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries, who worked as a nurse at Warrington Hospital and the Royal Liverpool Teaching Hospital from 1975 to 1982, has defended her Mid Bedfordshire seat by winning with a 56% share of the votes.

First elected in 2005, she held her seat in 2010 with a 27.6% lead.

Former public health minister and Conservative MP Anne Milton has also managed to retain her Guildford seat in Surrey with 30,802 votes, representing a 57% share of the total count.

After training as a nurse and working in the NHS for 25 years, she won the seat in 2005 from the Liberal Democrats by 347 votes and was re-elected in 2010 with a majority of 7,782.

She has worked in hospitals and as a district nurse. A former RCN steward, she has also been a chair of a branch of the National Childbirth Trust and a member of the Commons health committee.

However, district nurse Lesley Grahame, who stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Green Party in Norwich South, lost to Clive Lewis of Labour.