Student Nursing (Finance)

Debate between Ben Gummer and Jess Phillips

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer]

It is simply because I wish to see the same advantages that accrue to those already on the new finance system accruing to those who are not. I want to see an expansion in the number of places and I want to see the effects of the changes made by the Office for Fair Access to university admissions in the rest of the sector applied to nursing, so that we see not only an expansion in the numbers of nurses being trained, but a broadening of the backgrounds of those going into nursing, exactly as has happened in all other areas of higher education.

I want to explain, I hope quickly, how this change forms part of a wider reform we are making in student access to nursing. The hon. Member for Ilford North framed his entire speech, understandably so, around the university route into nursing, but he omitted to reflect on the fact that the Government have stated that we will introduce an apprenticeship route into nursing to degree level—level 6. That will provide an alternative route into nursing, whereby nurses will be able to earn while they learn from healthcare assistant level all the way to a full nursing qualification at degree level. It will be possible for them to do so as mature students, which means it might take a bit longer, but they will be able to earn all the way from an existing job to gaining a nursing qualification—an innovation that should be welcomed on both sides of the House and which will mark a real expansion of opportunity for the current NHS.

[Jess Phillips]

rose—

[Ben Gummer]

Before I give way to the hon. Lady, I should also explain that there are many people working as healthcare assistants at the moment who do not have the opportunity to progress to a nursing position unless they leave the workforce to do so. That puts many of them in an impossible position, because they have families to support and other duties and responsibilities. For the first time, we have been able to give that group of people an opportunity to progress, through the apprenticeship route, to a full nursing position. That will expand the whole area of career progression to include one of the larger cohorts in the NHS workforce, in a way that no Government have previously been able to do.

[Jess Phillips]

I wonder whether the Minister can clarify whether people will be paid for doing that apprenticeship and, if so, at what rates they would be paid. He rightly referred to getting mature students with families into work, so will he also say whether that cohort will fall foul of the rule that people must be doing 16 hours of work, and not be in training, to receive the Government’s 30 hours of free childcare? It was made clear in the Childcare Public Bill Committee that those nurses currently studying would not be able to access the 30 hours’ free childcare because that would not be considered work. When they saved my life, it looked like work.

[Ben Gummer]

The hon. Lady speaks with authority from her own personal experience—I have noticed that recently she has spoken her mind without holding back. We are in detailed discussions with the Nursing and Midwifery Council about precisely how the apprenticeship route will work. The council is the independent regulator and has to certify that the qualification matches the existing degree/university route. The qualification has to have complete equality of both esteem and rigour. Of course we envisage the apprentices earning a salary. We envisage opening the route to existing healthcare assistants to give them the opportunity to progress to a nursing grade while continuing at a similar salary point as an apprentice. However, because the hon. Lady’s question about maternity care pertains to student nurses rather than apprentices, I will ensure that I write to her in detail.

The hon. Lady clearly sees why this is an idea with strength, so I hope that in asking her question she realises that there will be two routes into nursing: the university route and the apprenticeship route. I think this is potentially one of the most exciting innovations in the workforce of the NHS for several decades, because it opens up nursing to a whole range of existing workers who have not had an opportunity before, and provides a wholly different route into nursing, but with the same rigour and robustness that the existing university degree route provides.