NHS Bursary

Colleen Fletcher Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) on securing this vital debate on the e-petition relating to the retention of the NHS bursary. I praise those who created the e-petition and the more than 150,000 people who have so far chosen to sign it.

I have no experience of nursing, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) and my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) for their experience. I have never had any interest in nursing, but when my husband was very ill last year I, like many others, gained experience of the nursing profession and how nurses go about their important work. I have nothing but admiration for nurses. However, because I do not have direct experience, I thought it pertinent to seek the views and opinions of some of the exceptional nurses who form the backbone of our NHS and who have first-hand experience of the physical, emotional, mental and financial challenge of successfully completing a rigorous healthcare course.

I asked nurses about the funding arrangements for NHS students and the consequences of the Government’s decision to scrap bursaries and charge tuition fees, thereby passing on the full cost of training to the students themselves for the first time. Without exception, these dedicated and essential frontline NHS professionals extolled the immeasurable importance of retaining and improving the existing bursary system and condemned, without equivocation, the Government’s decision to scrap it. They each wholeheartedly espoused the long-established reciprocity of the existing funding arrangements, which—albeit weighted in favour of the NHS and its patients—sees student nurses undertake a gruelling 2,300 hours of unpaid work across the NHS for the benefit of us all. In exchange, they are not charged fees for their training and receive a bursary. The arrangement recognises, whether by luck or design, the nature of the nursing course. It is longer than other university courses, with shorter holidays and a demanding work placement, all of which severely limits the opportunities to take on additional work to pay towards studies, to which many hon. Members have alluded.

The nurses to whom I spoke impressed on me how much of an incentive the current funding model is to those applying for a place on a nursing course and how its withdrawal, to be replaced with the huge levels of debt from a loan and tuition fee system, is likely to deter would-be applicants from entering the course in future. They said that that would be particularly true for mature students, who may have young families, caring responsibilities for elderly parents and a mortgage to pay, or those for whom healthcare is a second degree. Moreover, many of those whom I contacted raised concerns that the Government had already actively and wilfully undermined the incentives of a career in nursing, even before they announced the proposed funding changes.

One in particular, Steven, who is extremely proud of being a nurse and recognises the rewarding nature of the job and the positive impact that it can have on people’s lives, said that he was none the less aware that the incentives for entering the nursing profession had been significantly diminished in recent years and would be lessened still further by the Government’s proposals, which would burden newly qualified nurses with debt of at least £51,600 and an average pay cut of £900 a year due to debt repayments. Steven told me:

“Nursing currently offers very little incentive even if students make it through the three years of training. The well documented staff shortages and increased work load, especially in the winter, coupled with five years of pay freezes, below inflation pay rises, and increased pension contributions does not inspire students to commit to three years of gruelling physical work and financial hardship.”

Given the staffing shortages in the NHS, the Government should seek to improve the terms and conditions of employment for nurses, to reward their invaluable work in extremely difficult circumstances and to incentivise more people to enter the profession, rather than exacerbating the workforce crisis as they have done in recent years and as the proposed funding changes will do in future.

I hope that the Government will listen carefully to extraordinary and dedicated nurses such as Steven and, in doing so, recognise the strength of support among health professionals and the wider public for a reversal of the proposals and for the retention and improvement of the NHS bursary. If the Government are not minded to reverse their proposals, at the very least they should pause them before rushing through such damaging changes and take the opportunity to commit to a proper consultation on the full proposals, not simply have a procedural consultation on their implementation.

At this juncture it seems apt to conclude by again quoting Steven, who told me:

“The bursary allows anyone with a caring and kind nature to achieve their dream of being a nurse; it ensures a constant stream of nurses from all backgrounds which leads to a rich and diverse workforce equipped with the skills to deliver care to our rich and diverse society.”

The scrapping of the bursary will not only jeopardise that workforce diversity, but is likely to have a negative impact on overall nurse recruitment. Ministers would do well to take heed of his stark warning.