Increased Placement Funding Confirmed in an Attempt to Enhance Student Nurse Numbers
The government has announced that they are injecting more funding into placement schemes. This means that by 2020, an additional 10,000 nurses, midwives and allied health professionals will be able to train at universities in England.
Moreover, the launch of the funding increase has been implemented at a time when bursaries for student nurses, midwives and AHPs have been withdrawn. Official figures published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, state that the amount of people wanting to study nursing has plummeted by over 20% this year as a result of the removal of the bursary scheme.
However, although many see this withdrawal as a negative, it does mean that the government has removed the ‘cap’ on how many student nurses universities can enrol. The Health Minister, Phillip Dunne, believes that this cap has meant that “thousands of talented students have been rejected from university courses” which should now no longer be an issue.
This announcement has been praised by the Council of Deans of Health, which represents nursing, midwifery and AHP departments at UK universities. They believe that it will be a huge boost for the future of nursing.