BARNSLEY Central MP Dan Jarvis is leading a campaign to support NHS staff as ‘rocketing’ petrol prices drive them out of their profession.

According to the RAC, between January and June 2022, petrol has gone up by 45p per litre, and diesel by 50p per litre.

This is a 30 per cent rise in fuel costs since January alone.

NHS staff, whose mileage rates have been frozen by the HMRC since 2011 despite the increasingly high costs, are among the worst affected.

Dan hosted a roundtable in Parliament with Unison’s assistant general secretary, Jon Richards, to hear from the workers - including community and palliative care nurses - struggling to carry out their job.

He told the Chronicle: “It’s shameful that many can’t afford to do their job because standard mileage rates haven’t been updated in over a decade.

“Government must urgently increase mileage rates; without an uplift we are at significant risk of losing these vital workers at a time when the NHS is already facing unprecedented pressures.”