Grants for student nurses to be scrapped

Osborne insisted that abandoning student nurses’ bursaries would generate around £800 million in savings annually.

The Chancellor said: “Today there is a cap on student nurses; over half of all applicants are turned away, and it leaves hospitals relying on agencies and overseas staff.

“So we’ll replace direct funding with loans for new students – so we can abolish this self-defeating cap and create up to 10,000 new training places in this Parliament.”

However, Janet Davies, the general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said the move would place the UK in a ‘precarious position’.

She said: “Anything that makes people worse off and puts people off from becoming nurses and reduces links between student nurses and the NHS, would be a big loss to our society and puts us in a precarious position."

Davies argued the act of scrapping bursaries could put off potential trainee nurses, who will already owe debt from undertaking previous degrees.

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This story was first published in digitalhealth.net

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