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Agreed.
It's a perfect storm combination of nursing student funding changes, lack of places, and lack of clinical placement capacity.
56. Funding and financial support for student nurses starting undergraduate courses from August 2017 is now provided through the Student Loans Company, rather than the NHS bursary scheme. Under the NHS bursary scheme the number of nurse training places was capped, and the number of applications exceeded the number of places available by two to one. Many nurses also complained that the bursaries did not meet the cost of living and that there was no access to student loans for top ups.
57. Applications to undergraduate nursing courses in England in 2017/18 dropped by 23% compared to 2016/17. However, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also experienced a drop in applications, despite retaining the bursary, but these are smaller than the falls in England - the number of applicants is down by 10% in Wales compared with 2016, with reductions of 6% seen in Norther Ireland and 2% in Scotland. Even with a 23% reduction in applications, demand for places in 2017/18 still exceeded the number of places available by two to one.
59. It is too early to draw firm conclusions about the impact of student funding reforms on the supply of nurses. While applications have dropped, the number of places available has not yet expanded as anticipated. One reason for that is that all nursing degrees involve a clinical placement, and there have been delays in expanding clinical placement capacity. The Government has committed to funding an extra 5,000 clinical placements per year from 2018–19, which will increase nurse training places by 25%.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmhealth/353/353.pdf
Blaming the government’s decision to abolish bursaries for nursing students, a draft of the NHS people plan says: “Our analysis shows a 40,000 (11%) shortfall [in the number of nurses needed in England] in 2018-19 which widens to 68,500 (16%) by 2023-24 without intervention, as demand for nurses grows faster than supply.”
The plan says George Osborne’s decision in 2015 when he was chancellor of the exchequer to stop paying nursing students’ tuition fees and maintenance grants has led to a huge drop in those applying to be nurses at the same time as the NHS is facing its most debilitating shortage of them in decades.
Cuts may leave NHS short of 70,000 nurses, leaked report warns |
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