Nursing and Midwifery: Student Applications

Lord O'Shaughnessy Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reduction in the number of applications by students in England for nursing and midwifery courses at British universities beginning in 2017 compared to courses beginning in 2016.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord O'Shaughnessy) (Con)]

My Lords, at this stage of the application cycle, based on the data published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service on 2 February, Health Education England is confident that the NHS will be able to fill the number of nursing and midwifery places in England.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the nursing and midwifery workforce already has severe shortages, fewer EU nurses are coming to work in the NHS because of the referendum, and by 2020 nearly half the workforce will be eligible for retirement. What do the Government do? They end the long-established practice of providing student nurses with bursaries and tell them to take out loans, which will amount to £50,000 by the time they qualify. Last week, that had the predictable outcome, despite what the Minister says, of 10,000 fewer applications being received than at the same stage last year—I stress that it is at the same stage—which is a 23% drop from last year. In Scotland, where bursaries still apply, the figure was 4%. The Minister is new to his post and therefore cannot be held responsible for this bursary decision, but will he bring fresh thinking to the nursing supply crisis and get the Government to reverse this disastrous policy?

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[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am sorry to hear that the noble Lord no longer supports a higher education policy of loans and fees that was originally instigated by a Labour Government. He is right about the differing impacts in Scotland and Wales, which have different systems. He also knows that, whenever fees have been introduced in the past, there has been a dip and then a rebound. Two of those rises in fees happened under Labour Governments. There are around 37,000 applicants for around 23,000 places at this point in the cycle. As he knows, there will be further applications directly to universities and through clearing. He may also be reassured by the words of the head of policy at the Council of Deans of Health, which represents the universities affected. She said:

“The scale of the fall in application numbers is not the critical factor for universities or the health and social care sector. Courses that were previously heavily oversubscribed can survive a significant dip in application numbers as long as the quality of applicants is good, and our members report that this remains so”.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, filling the places is one matter, but the level of attrition is another, and that is dreadful. Apparently, one in four student nurses leaves during their training, and in the first two years after qualification two out of five leave the profession. Part of the problem is that the data are not consistently collected. If they were, we would be able to know which settings are very poor at keeping their young nurses. Will the Government do something about collecting those data in a consistent way so that something can be done about the level of attrition?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness makes an important point about attrition. It is one of the reasons that, within the new package of support, there is extra support for living expenses, both for mature students, who feature particularly in the case of nursing, and in cases of hardship.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, has the Minister seen the fifth annual State of Maternity Services Report from the Royal College of Midwives—I attended its launch this morning—in which there are very careful data about the fact that too many midwives are aged over 50, a considerable number are over 60 and there are not sufficient to take their places? The Government should worry about this.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for bringing up that issue. I have not seen the report, but I shall certainly look at it. It is true that, across the public sector, there is an issue with an ageing workforce. To some extent, that will be addressed by the fact that we will all be working until we are older. The Government will also be introducing increases to the number of training places, which was a critical reason for moving from a bursary to a fee-based system. The bursary system involved a cap; we are now able to release that cap and bring more numbers through in the training.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, as a very old retired nurse, can I ask my noble friend what the Government are doing to encourage an alternative route into nursing like the back to nursing course, which I took when my children were old enough to allow me to go back to work?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for that question. There are a couple of new opportunities: one is nursing associates and the other, in common with changes across the public sector, is that there are up to 1,000 new nursing degree apprenticeships providing alternative routes into nursing for those who do not want to go down the university route.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to clearing in his original reply. If, after clearing, there is still a substantial reduction in applications, will the Government then review the position?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

That is a hypothetical situation. Health Education England remains confident that we will fill the places. Critically, the universities—I mentioned the Council of Deans of Health—also think that we will still fill them.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the increasing concern about perinatal mental health for mothers and the great importance of this to the future well-being of their children? In this context, is he concerned that there should be continuity of care for such mothers and that we therefore must avoid at all costs finding ourselves in a situation where there are not enough midwives to give that continuity to these mothers?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank the noble Earl for that question. He is quite right that continuity of care is important. That is why we have brought about these changes to lift the cap on the number of places and become less reliant on foreign nurses filling those positions. It is also the reason, as he knows and I hope would welcome, that the Government have introduced a mental health strategy and are spending considerably more on it, with a Green Paper to come later this year.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, given the ageing profile of the current midwives workforce, and given that the Minister has acknowledged this and said that he will go back and re-examine the figures, is it not a perilous time to change the basis of midwives’ recruitment?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The Government took the decision to change to a fee-based system precisely because a bursary-based system involves caps and only so many places can be commissioned. A fee-based system allows the cap to be removed, with the intention of increasing the places available by up to 10,000 people a year, which will increase the flow into the profession to address precisely the issue that the noble Lord raises.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether his department undertook a risk analysis of changing the basis of the funding for nursing education at a time when the age profile was as has been described, and when the security of the EU nurses on whom the NHS depends at the moment—and will do so for the continuing future—is so damaged by the uncertainty of their immigration status? If such risk analysis was not undertaken, might it be done now?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

As the noble Baroness will know, Health Education England is responsible for commissioning medical training places, and I am sure that all necessary impact and risk assessments would have been carried out at the time. As the noble Lord opposite recognised, I was not in post at that point, but I will certainly look at it. I would be surprised if that was not the case.