Nursing MPs: Paulette Hamilton vows to fight profession’s corner

A total of four MPs from nursing backgrounds were voted in. Three of them – Sojan Joseph, Paulette Hamilton and Kevin McKenna – now sit in parliament, representing the governing Labour Party.

“The skills you get taught in nursing are very valuable for this type of role”

Paulette Hamilton

The fourth, former Royal College of Nursing general secretary Pat Cullen, won her seat in Northern Ireland for Sinn Féin, whose MPs do not take their seats due to a policy of abstentionism.

Labour’s three nursing, or ex-nursing, MPs, while not chosen for ministerial posts, spoke with Nursing Times about how they hope to influence policy from within and have laid out their priorities for the coming years.

Ms Hamilton, Labour Party MP for Birmingham Erdington, defended the seat, which she initially won in a 2022 by-election, with a majority of 7,019.

She began her more than 25-year long NHS career as a district nurse based in what is now NHS Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care Board, later taking on leadership and education roles in community nursing as well as in the Royal College of Nursing.

Ms Hamilton first entered politics in 2004, when she was elected to Birmingham City Council; in 2015, she became cabinet member for health and social care at the council, a post she held until her election to parliament in 2022.

Since July 2022, she has sat on the parliamentary Health and Social Care Select Committee, a cross-party body which scrutinises policy which is being put before other MPs.

Ms Hamilton expressed an ambition to chair the committee, which has, in the last year, scrutinised issues such as assisted dying and the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, and has put herself forward in the ongoing selection process.

Regardless of her role on the committee in future, she said she hoped to push for reforms to social care, dentistry, hospice funding and professional regulation from the back benches and select committee.

Paulette Hamilton speaking at a Health and Social Care Committee meeting in 2023

“Social care is a massive issue,” she said, in particular highlighting the issue of care packages increasing in price for many people.

“I’d like the select committee to have a really deep dive on it and see how we can influence that agenda.”

Labour’s general election manifesto stated that, if elected, Sir Keir Starmer’s government would undergo reforms with the aim of creating a National Care Service (NCS), which would act as a social care equivalent to the NHS.

Ms Hamilton said she was “keen” to see the NCS created and that she would ensure nurses were “shaping” its formation.

“At the moment, there are lots of discussions about [an NCS]. I am hoping that the government will listen to a health committee, if we come up with any recommendations,” she told Nursing Times.

“It’s something I would like to see to help with the issues of social care.

“[Social care] cannot just be an add-on anymore. It has to be a service within itself. And I think it needs to be free at the point of delivery.”

She aired confidence in Sir Keir’s choices for cabinet ministers, in particular Wes Streeting, who was named secretary of state for health and social care.

“I do feel that Labour definitely has a plan,” said Ms Hamilton.

“I have confidence in the new front Labour bench under Wes Streeting, he is determined we will make a change.

“And I do tend to believe it. They will do their damnedest within the budget that they’ve got to do what they need to do.”

Ms Hamilton’s constituency, a deprived area of Birmingham, has been acutely hit by lack of access to dentistry, recent layoffs in a local hospice and long GP delays. She said these issues must be addressed, but reiterated her optimism about the new government.

She felt particularly encouraged by the “sense checks”, as she described them, being done by the government such as Lord Darzi’s upcoming review of the health service.

She hoped other issues such as pay for nurses, the regulation of support workers and cancer care would also be high up on the new government’s agenda.

Despite being off the Nursing and Midwifery Council register since 2023, Ms Hamilton said nursing was part of her “DNA”.

She said her, and the other members of the profession who have turned to politics, had “a lot to offer” these roles.

“[Nursing] means you are less likely to just jump in, and you’re prepared to listen to all sides of the argument, you’re prepared to assess and measure what’s going on,” she said.

“The skills you get taught in nursing are very valuable for this type of role.”

However, she also reflected how there were certain skills required of politicans which may not come naturally to nurses and needed to be learned.

“As nurses, my one fear is that sometimes, because we’re the caring profession, because sometimes we struggle to sell ourselves, we’re left behind, because others are there who are really pushy and could sell themselves a lot more,” said Ms Hamilton.

“Sometimes with nurses, we just want to get on and do. And getting on and doing is not always enough.

“You also have to learn to play the game and understand the place that you’re in. And sometimes with the skills we have, it equips us. But we also have to learn that we need to push ourselves forward, not just always be listening.”

Interviews with Ms Hamilton, Mr Joseph and Mr McKenna will be printed in the Nursing Times August 2024 magazine and are each being published, separately, across this week.