From the Royal College of Nursing website:

“The Royal College of Nursing has warned that the NHS is heading for crisis point with, with 56,058 NHS positions across the UK due to be cut.

“In England, the pace of post cuts has risen by more than 50 per cent with 48,029 NHS posts set to be cut or already lost since the RCN began tracking post losses in April 2010. Just seven months ago, the figure was 30,873.

“An RCN analysis of 41 trusts in England revealed that clinical posts make up almost half of the total workforce cuts with nursing posts accounting for more than a third of the posts earmarked to be cut.”