Starting Nursing with £60,000 debt ?

The Conservatives claim to have increased training places for nurses at universities. This is just to distract from the fact they have scrapped NHS bursaries for nurses.

By Alan McGuire

The Conservatives claim to have increased training places for nurses at universities. This is just to distract from the fact they have scrapped NHS bursaries for nurses. I was fortunate to have received one of these to train to be a nurse, without it I would not be trained.

Nursing is a career change for many middle aged people or graduates that wish to train further. These two groups of people make up a large number of nursing students, many of whom have other responsibilities such as children and mortgages. In the past changing career with these responsibilities was a risk now it is just too high. Getting into £60,000 plus worth of debt to get a £25,000 a year job is not attractive. Even more so with the privatisation and cuts made to the NHS.

Throwing money at the problem will not solve the NHS problems but addressing funding gaps, changing the culture of the NHS and how it is run and improving staffing levels will give the NHS a new lease on life that it needs. A Labour government would reintroduce nursing bursaries and lift the NHS pay cap. Stopping the privatisation of Health services for profit, and training staff and paying them well would also be another step with a Labour government.