Loss of nurses burseries

Galen, not a lot except nurses tend to earn less than doctors throughout their careers I imagine. Otherwise, both work with patients during training. I'm sure you'll correct me kindly, if I have the wrong end of things

Same with other degrees. Sorry to sound unsympathetic, but!

Nurses work on wards while they are doing their degrees. That means they are working for nothing. Do we want that in the NHS?

www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/emma-clewer/its-busraryorbust-for-our-nurses-join-march-this-saturday

My granddaughter gets a bursary for teacher training as it's a shortage subject.

"The Tories have decided nurses and other healthcare professionals will graduate with up to £50,000 of debt - despite half their training consisting of work placements in hospitals and the wider community. Students will pay to train while completing up to 48 hours unpaid work a week.

And students will graduate into a job that, while incredibly rewarding, has seen a five-year pay freeze, rapidly deteriorating working conditions and ever lengthening hours. Government rhetoric implies that 10,000 new nurses will be trained as a result of Osborne’s bursary cut. Those I study with are curious to know who these 10,000 people are, given that everyone we know says their bursary was their lifeline. "

From the above link.

152,000+ signatures on the e petition.
It is to be debated on Monday at 4.30.

Galen other degrees do not involve work placements as nursing degrees do. The nursing bursary was meant to reflect this requirement. It now seems that nursing students will now be charged and will need to take out loans to work in the NHS. We can look forward to a real lack of nurses. It is absolute madness. Don't believe the figures being spread by the Gov. Student loans are a complete disaster, repayment levels are much lower than expected and much of the amount will simply be written off.

If a student at uni, studying engineering say, does an amount of time "on the job", does he/she get paid for that?

Do student nurses spend more time than other subject students, doing hands-on work?

Nursing has got a lot more technical these days. Perhaps the gap has narrowed, between the two types of student.

No student loans now.When my daughter applied for adult nursing training in 2006 (she was 27 then). She applied for an LA grant but could not get one as she had one for her first degree.

She then discovered she could get a bursary to do a ?diploma rather than doing a degree. She completed her three years training and started working. The only difference in training between a diploma and a degree was that the degree option required an 10,000 word dissertation on a suitable topic.

She completed her disertation about two years later and obtained a degree. There are now no bursaries.

From what DD has said the amount of practical on ward training and academic stuff is about half and half. There is no alternative though to learning the practical skills on the job.
My DD would have found it very difficult to undertake without her bursary.
Poor girl is going back to work in February? March after her second maternity leave.

Galen, how did you get your degrees? Did you get grants like the rest of us?

Doubt if any hands on work for other students includes emptying bedpans and, if it did I'm sure they'd refuse to do it . I'd assume that most nurses when they qualify will go straight into agency work which [so I've been told] has better pay and conditions. What about those nurses that, for one reason or another don't complete their training and end up with a huge debt?

My understanding is student nurses will now have to apply for student loans like other degree students. The government said the cap on the number of bursaries available was restricting the number of student nurses, making the nursing shortage worse. The government believes more people will train as nurses using student loans than under the bursary scheme, thereby helping to solve the nursing shortage.

The problem is the average age of student nurses is 29 and many have outstanding student loans from previous degree courses which will prevent them from applying for new student loans. These students will only be entitled to claim maintenance loans, the details of which are yet unknown.

Hopefully someone will correct my understanding if it's wrong.

Don't shoot me down in flames, but can someone please tell my why a nurse needs a degree? When I started my training I was 26. I went for my interview, did the apptitude test, scored highly enough to do the student nursing course at my Mental Health hospital and did my training as follows: twelve weeks on the wards and two weeks in school. The course lasted three years and eight months. Out of thirteen in my set only five of us qualified, and we were all offered jobs at the end of it. I loved Nursing, but think that now the training is too academic. In my opinion, the lack of nurses is due to it being a degree course. If it had been so in my day, I would not have applied, as I went to a secondary modern school which did not do GCE exams, therefore I had no qualifications. Nursing is a vocation!

i don't think the lack of nurses is due to it being a degree course, it seems more likely to be down to the fact that in this country we don't train enough nurses or midwives. We get them already trained from other countries, who presumably need them.

The move to degree level training for nurses (and social workers) was an attempt, imo, to professionalise and improve the standard of training. No comment from me on whether that has been a success.

They don't need a degree. Plenty of great nurses before degrees were introduced but rather too many 'too posh to wash' types nowadays.

Yes, nursing is much more complex these days but IMO the baby's been thrown out with the bathwate, when a so-called 'nurse' can just plonk food and drink down in front of a patient incapable of feeding thrmselves and leave them to it.

They should bring back the training on the job qualification and then add on extra courses for those who want to take on extra responsibility and have ambitions to rise in the profession. The emphasis needs to be on patient care

Also, with more career opportunities opening up for young women less are choosing nursing as an option and the quality of trainees is not what it was.

The whole situation is a mess and needs a shake up.

Nurses these days sit at nurses stations and don't know what's going on in the ward. I can't understand how the shortage of nurses will be solved by abolishing bursaries. Surely, the bursary scheme should be extended to encourage more to train? Instead, fortunes are spent on agency staff and shipping in foreign nurses. Or am I missing something?

Nursing is completely different than it was when we were young. The higher grades of nurses do need a degree. They need a huge amount of technical and medical knowledge. I would think they need to be only slightly lower than doctors!

It would be ideal if all nurses had a degree. It is very much a profession.

I do think there should be some sort of financial allowance for the time they spend working on the wards.

Suzied A friend of my DD's is a fully qualified nurse, but she is German and did her exams in Germany. She is not allowed to work as a nurse in this country. She is desperately having to save money to do a further course here. Meantime she is caring for old or disabled people in their own homes.

One of my friends DiL is a ward sister at our local hospital.everyone who comes into contact with her has nothing but praise for her. She is 51 and not being overly academic she trained as an SEN, a role long gone. Her potential was recognised and she was offered the chance to do more training ,on the job, to become an SRN. It really paid off. The role of SEN should be reintroduced.

My dd graduated at 37. She has worked on a busy surgical ward for two years, working 13 hour shifts (days and nights) believe me she is not 'too posh to wash'. Also has been left in charge of the ward. She did not get paid whilst training and is left with a large loan to pay off. Sadly she is thinking of moving into the community.

If many nurses are too posh to wash, stay in the nurses stations and don't know what's going on in the ward who does the nursing?

I couldn't nurse for an hour , i recall spending months in hospital in my teens, nurses were treated with respect , now they are often treated as domestics use to be treated

The training for nurses now involves studying for a degree. Many people who want to train are older not just those straight from school. With more life experience they are often more suitable candidates to do this work but the removal of bursaries will deter many. Taking on loans will just not be an option and the structure of the training means that it is not necessarily possible to take on a second job as other students can. My son's partner trained as a nurse gaining a diploma before they were phased out. She was slightly older already having children and was only able to do this because of the disbursary and other financial assistance.

Healthcare assistants with NVQ qualifications are doing a large amount of work that nurses previously did .i started my training in 1968 and am still working part-time having acquired various other nursing qualifications over the years . I was attached to a training hospital and worked on the wards during my training and had a small salary. But nurses were never classed as the professionals they were ,and I hope that the degree status will give our highly trained and dedicated nurses the credence they deserve. The less able people who wish to enter the profession can still do so as HCA's and study for NVQ which will give them the opportunity to advance if they so wish .

That's another point Grannyboots back in the day when nurses trained on the wards at least they got paid.

What's wrong with reverting to the old SEN and SRN training and then, for those who want it and are suitable, adding on a year's post qualification upgrade, in the same way that those who want to teach can do a PGCE?