Angela Rayner & Jon Ashworth: This government is failing student nurses – today Labour will vote to protect them

Tonight in the House of Commons MPs will have a chance to vote to defend support for students taking nursing degrees so that they can serve in our NHS.

The Tory government has already cut the NHS bursary, which supported undergraduates studying to be nurses. Now they are proposing changes that would withdraw bursaries from a further set of students, including post-graduate nursing students.

The government’s plans make no sense at all. In the two years since bursaries were taken from undergraduates, applications to nursing courses have fallen by 33 per cent. Applications from mature students have fallen by 42 per cent. Incredibly, there are now 700 fewer places on nursing degrees this year compared to last year.

Just as bad, the Royal College of Nursing recently exposed how nursing students are being let down by the Student Loans Company during the transition away from bursaries. Hundreds of student nurses from at least nine universities in England have been warned not to expect further loan payments this year due to administrative errors in the loans system, which resulted in overpayments.

This has left many worried about their rent and living costs with the largest overpayments made to the poorest students – recipients of means-tested grants, who are often mature students without parental support and with children or caring responsibilities. 

When the NHS bursary was first cut, Jeremy Hunt said the changes would support 10,000 extra training places. Instead, numbers are falling. This comes at the worst possible time, when the NHS workforce is already in crisis.

Over the past eight years of Conservative government, the nation’s nursing shortage has gone from bad to worse. Now NHS Improvement says there are more than 40,000 nursing vacancies across England. The figure has more than doubled in the past four years.

The government’s next step is to remove the NHS bursary for postgraduate pre-registration students in England. This is short-sighted and stands in stark contrast to the government’s claimed aspiration to grow rather than shrink further the future nursing workforce.

Labour is fighting this regressive cut and calling on ministers to reverse this policy and restore funding support so that the NHS can recruit for the future.

The critical shortage of nurses in the NHS is a threat to patients across the country. By returning to fully funded training, Labour in government would give nurses the support they need to provide the best possible quality of care to their patients. We would ensure that the NHS has the staff to look after all of us when we need their care.

But today, the whole House of Commons will have the chance to join us and tell the government to think again. MPs of all parties say they support the NHS – this is their chance to vote for it.  

Angela Rayner is Shadow Education Secretary and Jonathan Ashworth is Shadow Health Secretary.