Ins and outs: Nursing MPs who won and lost in the general election

The winners include the former chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Pat Cullen, who has been elected to represent Sinn Féin.

She has been elected as the MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone in Northern Ireland. She received a total of 24,844 votes, beating Ulster Unionist Party candidate Diana Armstrong by 4,571 votes.

She will, however, not take up her seat in Westminster, as Sinn Féin currently has a policy of abstentionism.

Other winners on election night include adult nurse Kevin McKenna and mental health nurse Sojan Joseph, both of whom have become new Labour Party MPs.

Mr McKenna took the Kent seat of Sittingbourne and Sheppey with 11,919 votes, very narrowly beating the Conservative candidate by just 355 votes, with Reform UK not far behind in third.

He is still on the NMC register, having qualified as an adult nurse in the 1990s at the Nightingale Institute at King’s College London.

The new Labour MP subsequently worked in critical care in a number of London hospitals, including University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Later, he worked in strategy on nationwide NHS programmes at NHS England. In 2015, he was made a Darzi fellow in clinical leadership.

According to his campaign biography, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Mr McKenna worked as a matron at NHS Nightingale Hospital London.

Mr Joseph, meanwhile, won in Kent. He took the Ashford seat from the Conservatives with 15,262 votes. The Conservative candidate came second with 13,483, with a Reform UK candidate in third with 10,141.

Mr Joseph, who was born in Kerala, a state in India, has worked in the NHS for the past 21 years as a mental health nurse and is currently working as a matron in a mental health unit.

He started his NHS career at the Arundel Unit, based at William Harvey Hospital, which is run by East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust.

In addition, Paulette Hamilton retained her seat as Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington, which she has held since a by-election in March 2022, sparked by the death of the previous incumbent.

Ms Hamilton secured 14,774 votes on Thursday, double that of the second placed candidate from Reform UK. She significantly improved on the 9,413 votes she received in the 2022 by-election.

She worked as a nurse in the NHS for 25 years, including as a district nurse, sister, and later as a regional development officer for the Royal College of Nursing. She is no longer on the register.

In a further link to the profession, Labour leader and newly elected prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s mother, Josephine, was also a nurse.

Also, former health minister and district nurse Ann Keen has been acting as an advisor on nursing policy to senior members of the party since 2021, including the new health secretary Wes Streeting.

A member of the last Labour government, she was the MP for Brentford and Isleworth from 1997 until 2010.

Under Gordon Brown, she served as a health minister from 2007 to 2010 and played a leading role in the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery in England.

Meanwhile, among those with a nursing background who have lost their seats was former government minister Maria Caulfield. She was previously the Conversative MP for Lewes.

Until the general election was called, she was minister for women at the Department of Health and Social Care, having also been a health minster for a short period.

Prior to entering politics, she worked in the NHS for 20 years. After leaving school she became a nurse, later specialising in cancer and becoming a senior sister at the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Ms Caulfield remains on the NMC register and, in order to maintain her registration, has done occasional shifts since she was first elected in 2015.

She also made the headlines in many newspapers during 2020 for volunteering to help during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Another registered nurse, Ellen Nicholson, failed in her bid to become the new Liberal Democrat MP for Runnymede and Weybridge in Surrey.

She received 10,815 votes, coming second to the Conservative candidate who retained the seat with 18,442 votes.

Ms Nicholson is a Queen’s Nurse, a governor for Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and a former chair of the RCN’s general practice nurse forum.

In recent times, the nursing profession has been represented in Westminster by parties of a variety of colours. In 2018, there were also four other former nurses working as MPs.

Anne Milton, who was Conservative MP for Guildford from May 2005 until November 2019, trained as a nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. She worked for the NHS for 25 years as a district nurse and for people requiring palliative care.

Among a wide variety of roles during her stretch in Westminster, she was a member of the Commons health select committee and also a junior health minister.

Regarding the latter, she served in the coalition government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health between 2010 and 2012.

She resigned in July 2019, shortly before Boris Johnson became prime minister and had the whip removed in September. She stood as an independent in the general election of that year but lost.

Nadine Dorries, who was elected Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire in 2005, was a nurse at Warrington Hospital and the Royal Liverpool Teaching Hospital during the 1970s and early 1980s.

During her time in parliament, she was Minister of State for Patient Safety, Suicide Prevention and Mental Health from July 2019 to September 2021.

She announced her intention to stand down as an MP with immediate effect in June 2023 but did not formally vacate her seat until August that year, leading to widespread criticism in Westminster.

Meanwhile, Eleanor Smith, elected Labour MP for Wolverhampton South West in June 2017, was a former theatre nurse at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.

She was also the first black woman to hold the post of Unison president from June 2011 to June 2012. She lost her seat in the Commons in the 2019 general election.

In addition, Karen Lee, who was elected Labour MP for Lincoln and a shadow minister for fire in June 2017, used to be a nurse at Lincoln County Hospital. She also left the Commons in November 2019.

• While we always do our best to research stories, the process is not always exhaustive due to time constraints. Therefore, if we have missed any current MPs with a nursing background, let us know.