Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, in response to official figures showing the NHS has lost 752 nurses in the last month, totalling 6642 since May 2010, said:

“These figures make a mockery of everything the Government tried to claim earlier this week. Things are heading in the wrong direction and the NHS simply cannot continue to take nursing cuts on this scale.

“The number of nurses on hospital wards has hit a dangerously low level. But the Government stopped short of requiring action and numbers will continue to fall.

“For three years we’ve been telling ministers that  nurse numbers were falling, but David Cameron ignored the warnings. This winter he’s left the NHS facing an A&E crisis with thousands fewer nurses. It is yet more proof that you can’t trust the Tories with the NHS.”