NHS Bursary
Debate between Andrea Jenkyns and Paul Scully(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Paul Scully
That is on a band 5 salary. I would expect nurses to increase that. The point of the student loans system is that it is a finite time period of 30 years.
Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)
I am on the current student loans system as I only graduated a couple of years ago. I am paying it back out of my salary and I am thankful for the opportunity to do that. Does my hon. Friend agree that the current system for nurses limits the number of applicants? The new system, rather than denying thousands of applicants the opportunity to study healthcare subjects at university, will release more people into the system so that we have more nurses. It will also help to sort out the problem of reliance on expensive agency staff and overseas applicants. We will have more home-grown nurses with the new system.
Paul Scully
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. The new system will certainly help with overseas applicants and agency staff and, as is the aim, it will release extra people into the profession. One concern that we need to address and that I will touch on a little bit later is about the placements and opportunities available after graduation. It is important to ensure that those opportunities are there for nurses. There is no point having a paper-based exercise if there are not enough positions for nurses.
Paul Scully
I would rather that we re-examined the overall system and reconsidered how we work with student nurses to give them a fair salary. I would rather it be more straightforward, open and transparent, rather than calling it a bursary. Bursaries are effectively gifts, which can be taken away. If someone is working hard in a position that is not supernumerary, we need to examine that. At the end of my speech, when I talk about the petition, I will say that this is the start of an exercise. This is a welcome time to have the petition, because student nurses and the 154,000 people who signed it can help to shape the policy over the next academic year ready for whatever is in place for the 2017-18 academic year and beyond.
Andrea Jenkyns
We have talked about nursing being a vocation, but does my hon. Friend agree that teaching and being a doctor are also vocations? This proposal puts nurses on the same system as for teachers and doctors—nursing is a vocation, too.