Why is the government bringing back financial support for student nurses?

Until 2016-17 students doing a first degree in nursing received a bursary from the government worth up to £16,454 a year to help boost the NHS’s supply of “homegrown” nurses.

That included payment of a student’s tuition fees of up to £9,000 and a maintenance grant of £1,000, neither of which were means-tested. It also included two other forms of support that did depend on the student’s financial circumstances: a maintenance grant of between £2,207, for those living at home, and £3,191, for students living away from home in London.

However, in what critics warned was a misguided and reckless move, the then chancellor, George Osborne, announced in the 2015 comprehensive spending review that bursaries for future nurses were being scrapped in favour of loans. Doing so would increase the number of people training to be a nurse, he insisted.

Bursaries were removed in England in 2016, although the other UK nations continued to fund them.

What impact has scrapping bursaries had?

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) says the policy has been very damaging and is a key reason why the number of unfilled vacancies in nursing in the NHS in England has risen and now stands at over 43,000.

Since then, the number of applications for nursing courses has fallen, which threatens to exacerbate the NHS’s already serious shortage.

In May, health experts drawing up the NHS’s forthcoming strategy to tackle understaffing, the People Plan, warned in a leaked early draft of the document that the service’s shortage of nurses could hit almost 70,000 by 2023-24.

Applications from first-time students for nursing degrees have dropped from 52,740 in 2016 to 39,665 this year, a fall of 13,075.

The number of students starting a nursing course fell from 22,630 in 2016 to 22,045 in 2017 and 21,745 in 2018 but rose again to 23,060 this year.

What support is Boris Johnson’s government reintroducing?

From the next academic year, starting in September 2020, all nursing students in England will get a £5,000-a-year maintenance grant. In addition, those who plan to work in areas with severe shortages of nurses, or in one of the areas of care where the lack of nurses is acute – such as mental health or learning disability care – will receive another £3,000.

Johnson is making good on a key pledge he made during the recent general election campaign. He hopes the grants will encourage more people to choose nursing as a career.

So is the new policy a U-turn?

Matt Hancock, the health secretary – who was an adviser to Osborne in 2015 – denies that.

The RCN has welcomed the grants. But it says that that is only “a first victory” in its campaign for the return of full packages of financial support for would-be nurses. It wants the government to also resume paying tuition fees for student nurses. “Any barriers for people wanting to enter nursing must be removed,” said Dame Donna Kinnair, the union’s general secretary.