Nurses Using Food Banks? That's Fake News, Says Ian Collins

9 May 2017, 08:49 | Updated: 9 May 2017, 12:31

Ian Collins says the stories on social media that nurses are struggling so much they are forced to use food banks are fake news.

LBC's late night presenter said that individual nurses may have previously used food banks, but to suggest there is an inherent problem is simply not true.

Ian said: "I'll tell you something that is fake news. I keep hearing this, I mentioned this earlier to Tom, my producer, somebody said it on the show last night, 'we've got nurses using food banks'.

"That's fake news, that's absolutely fake news, because it's news that's attempting to advance a political narrative by suggesting that it's a norm or suggesting it's standard practice.

"I think it started with The Daily Mirror investigation, a couple of student nurses or students who had used food banks- that became, we have nurses using food banks.

"Nobody would say we've got a former man who used to work in IT using a food back. It's not very romantic, not very sexy that, is it? But nurses using food banks? Florence Nightingale using food banks? That's classic fake news.

"You say it enough times. I've seen that one repeated a billion times on social media, people going into huge rants on Facebook. You know 'we live in this world that does this and does that, but I never thought in my lifetime I'd see nurses using food banks.'

"That's because they're not, not on mass. There's not an epidemic of nurses at food banks. Some student nurses have used a food bank, that's the story.

"Lots of other people have used a food bank, presumably they would go hungry if the food bank wasn't there, that's perhaps another argument.

"But I would consider that to be absolutely in the category of fake news, because it's not making a sideline observation about the fact that somebody in a particular profession happened to use a food bank. The narrative thrust of that is that there is a big issue with nurses and their need and their reliance on foodbank charity and that of course is not true."