Scrapping student nurse grant will ‘discourage next Florence Nightingale or Edith Cavell’

By The Press Association15th December 2015News EnglandEducation / Training, Midwifery, News England, Nursing / Midwifery, Students, Training

Scrapping grants for student nurses risks preventing the next Florence Nightingale or Edith Cavell from emerging, ministers have been warned.

Labour’s Wes Streeting, a former president of the National Union of Students, said it would be a “tragedy” if people were discouraged from emulating the notable nurses from Britain’s history – as he pressed the Government to pause its work on the changes.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has previously insisted replacing bursaries with loans in 2017 needs to be done for financial reasons and could created thousands of extra nursing posts by 2020.

The plan was unveiled in the Comprehensive Spending Review and is expected to free up around £800 million a year in Government spending.

But Mr Streeting warned “eye-watering” debts of at least £51,600 could mount up for students as a result of the proposals.

He said nursing and midwifery students currently pay no tuition fees and receive a non-means-tested grant of up to £1,000 and a means-tested bursary of up to £3,191 to help with the cost of living.

Students on both courses are required to work throughout their degrees in clinical practice and are subject to the full 24-hour care cycle, with nurses working at least 2,300 hours across their degree.

Those who do paid work outside their course can end up working around 60 hours a week as a result.

But Mr Streeting (pictured) warned the changes would result in student nurses having to start repaying the debt as soon as they graduate as they earn a starting salary just over the repayment threshold, “shamefully” frozen at £21,000.

The MP for Ilford North said as a result they will take an average £900-a-year pay cut to meet debt repayments.

Speaking in the Commons, he said: “This is no way for ministers to treat the people who form the backbone of the NHS.”

He asked for MPs to be given a full debate and a vote should the Government choose to introduce fees.

Mr Streeting said: “As the saying goes, ‘Save one life and you’re a hero, save 100 lives and you’re a nurse’.

“These people are seeking to qualify into these difficult professions to form the NHS of tomorrow. They deserve our respect, our admiration and our support – and the right incentives to continue or even commence study in the first place.

“Ministers should listen to the students protesting and the nearly 150,000 people who have signed the petition to keep the NHS bursary.

“The Government owes it to both patients and students to rethink their proposals and to think them through properly, so I ask the Government to pause this process.

“It’d be a tragedy if the next Florence Nightingale or Edith Cavell were discouraged from the profession because of these changes.”

Labour’s Jess Phillips (Birmingham Yardley) said her own life – along with her son’s – were saved by a student midwife.

She said: “Making those people not just work for free but to pay to save the lives of people like me and my son is simply despicable.”

Health minister Ben Gummer said the aim of the changes was to expand the number of places available to ensure students from all backgrounds could become nurses.

He added: “I want to bring the advantages of bringing people from disadvantaged backgrounds into nursing, in the same way that we’ve been able to achieve through the rest of the higher education sector.

“I believe passionately in that and that’s why even if it were not for the reasons the NHS requires this change and students themselves require this change – those who are not yet getting a place, the 37,000 people who didn’t get a place last year who applied for one – I’d be making this change, because I believe it to be the right thing to those who otherwise wouldn’t be given an opportunity, and under the new student financing arrangements will be.”

Earlier Mr Gummer said the existing system was not delivering for health students or patients, telling the debate: “The reason for that, simply put, is that nursing is one of the most over-subscribed subjects in the whole of the academic range – it’s the fifth most popular that Ucas offers.

“Last year there were 57,000 applicants for the 20,000 nursing places available.”

Mr Gummer said it is not possible to offer a place to everyone under the current funding system, adding: “The question is to us is how do we change the system so we give more people the opportunity to study nursing and, not only that, so we are able better to supply the nurses and the nursing positions that are required in the NHS.”

The Conservative frontbencher said a consultation on the proposals would begin in January and consider how mature students were supported.

He said: “I can confirm one element of it, which is we will allow mature students to apply for a second loan, but that of course will account for only a small number of the cohort.”

Mr Gummer said he could not yet guarantee a vote and a debate, noting: “I think we’ll wait and see what the outcome of the consultation is so that the House can be best informed.”