UK
Financial strain threatens nursing profession, as tens of thousands of student nurses consider pulling out

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 

22 December, 2024 
LEFT FOOT FORWARD

An estimated 32,000 student nurses could drop out of their courses in coming years because of declining pay after graduation.

Tens of thousands of student nurses could be forced to abandon their studies because of financial pressures, according to the Royal college of Nursing (RCN).

The nursing union carried out a study which estimated 32,000 student nurses could drop out of their courses in coming years because of declining pay after graduation.

Real-term pay cut means hundreds of thousands of nurses are effectively working five days a month for free.

Changes made in 2016 meant that bursaries for nurse education were scrapped. Students now have to pay over £9,000 a year to train and join the profession. The RCN’s study found that 70 percent of student nurses are considering quitting.

Currently, there are 31,774 vacant nursing positions in England’s health service, and the RCN is urging for immediate action to address the growing burden of student debt, the cost-of-living crisis, and the need for better pay to retain nurses.

Professor Nicola Ranger, general secretary of the RCN, stated: “The students of today are the nurses of the future, but for tens of thousands, the unbearable weight of graduate debt, lack of support with living costs and prospect of low pay is set to push them out of the profession before they qualify. This is a tragedy for them and patients.

“To deliver the government’s NHS reforms we need to supercharge recruitment into nursing, but we can’t do that with a broken education model or more real terms pay cuts. Ministers should change course and agree a social contract with nursing students that sees pay rise and loans forgiven if they commit to working in public services.

“Transforming care cannot happen without investment to transform nursing. That means changing the way we recruit into the profession and making it a more attractive career by raising pay.”

The RCN has criticised the proposed 2.8 percent pay rise for NHS nurses in England, calling it “an insult to workers, harmful to patients, and counterproductive to rebuilding the NHS.”

In response to the criticism, a government spokesperson claimed the RCN’s figures were speculative.

“These figures are speculative. As we deliver our plan for change, we are taking action to fix our broken NHS and ensure nursing remains an attractive career choice.

“We have already delivered pay rises for over 1.4 million agenda for change staff, including nurses, and together with the NHS we will unveil a refreshed workforce plan in the summer to provide the health service with much-needed stability and certainty.”