Moved by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath That this House regrets
that the Education (Student Support) (Amendment) (No. 2)
Regulations 2018 extend the normal student maintenance regime to
more categories of nursing students as a replacement for the NHS
Bursary Scheme; and calls on Her Majesty’s Government to postpone
the introduction of the Regulations until the current review of
post-18 education...Request free trial
Moved by
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That this House regrets that the Education (Student
Support) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2018 extend the
normal student maintenance regime to more categories of
nursing students as a replacement for the NHS Bursary
Scheme; and calls on Her Majesty’s Government to postpone
the introduction of the Regulations until the current
review of post-18 education and funding has been completed
(SI 2018/443).
Relevant documents: 21st and 25th Reports from the
Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
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(Lab)
My Lords, the huge pressure which the NHS is under is
taking a massive toll on our nursing, midwifery and other
health professionals. It has been estimated that the NHS in
England has approximately 40,000 nursing vacancies, with a
vacancy rate of over 10%. A similar rate applies to
midwives, although the RCM estimates it to be higher, to
reflect the number of babies being born. The other health
professions covered by this regulation are similarly
affected. More nurses and midwives are leaving the
profession before retirement; one in three nurses is due to
retire in the next 10 years. For various reasons, including
Brexit, work pressures and the age profile of the nursing
profession, the number of nurses and midwives on the NMC
register at the end of March 2018 was less than that in
March 2017 and significantly less than at the peak in March
2016.
The House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee
inquiry found that the nursing workforce in England must
be,
“expanded at scale and pace”,
and that,
“future projections of demand for nurses should be based on
demographics and other demand factors, rather than on
affordability”.
Given this, one would have thought that the Government
would do all they could to support and encourage entry to
these professions. Instead, they are doing the opposite,
reflected in these regulations, by ploughing ahead with
their plan to scrap bursaries for yet more students,
despite knowing full well the disastrous consequences that
will follow.
Two years ago, the Government scrapped the undergraduate
bursary. The results were predictable. In 2016, before the
abolition, there were more than 47,000 nursing applicants
in England. In 2018, the figure fell to about 31,000—a fall
of over 15,000. It is clear that this is the reason why we
have seen the sharpest ever decline in nursing
applications. I have no doubt that the Minister will say
that the number of applications is less important than the
number of acceptances. I disagree: I want nursing to be
seen as a profession where there is hot competition for
places because it is such an attractive profession to be
in.
No doubt the Government will say that they have committed
to create more training places for nurses. They certainly
promised an extra 5,000 nursing places and said that
nursing bursaries had to be scrapped to make that possible.
What has been delivered is a mere 700 fewer students
training to be nurses. It is worrying, too, that there has
been such a huge drop-off in mature students applying—the
extraordinary figure of 42%. The very people we need to
apply, who have often brought up a family, are now being
denied an opportunity to make a career in nursing or face
the consequences of being forced into huge debt.
We know that postgraduate students in particular are more
vulnerable to the introduction of fee loans: 64% of
postgraduate healthcare students are aged over 25 compared
to only 18% of students generally. Women are largely
attracted to the healthcare postgraduate route and
represent 80% of the course places. There is a higher
percentage of ethnic minority students on postgraduate
healthcare courses compared to the general population, and
the Department for Education equality analysis clearly
states that these groups are known to be more debt averse.
So introducing loans is likely to undermine recruitment of
this cohort and represents yet another missed opportunity
to grow the nursing workforce at a time of severe shortage.
The Government claimed in the other place that raising the
cap will unlock additional places, but it was the
Government themselves who set the cap through their funding
of Health Education England. They also say that they can
fill some of the gap with nursing apprenticeships. They
have promised 1,000 of them, yet only a handful have
started the course. This shortfall is not the only problem
with overreliance on apprenticeships. A nursing apprentice
will take four years to become a registered nurse. Even if
there were a miraculous surge in apprenticeships starting
this summer, we would not see any qualified nurses on our
wards until 2022. Contrast that with an undergraduate
nursing course, which can take three years, or postgrad
courses referred to in the regulations, which can take two
years, which makes them the quickest way to tackle the
shortfall in numbers.
Another solution the Government have come up with is
nursing associates. But there is clear evidence that using
support workers or trainees as replacements for qualified
nurses has potentially disastrous consequences for care. I
hope that the Minister will confirm that that is not the
Government’s intention. The nursing associate is a support
role and must not be used as a substitute for registered
nurses. Research is clear that diluting and substituting
the registered nursing workforce with nursing support
workers has ill consequences for many patients.
In pushing ahead with this regulation, Ministers ignore
their department’s impact assessment. The DfE’s assessment
of the changes to the bursary said that it would
disproportionately affect women and ethnic minority
students, yet Ministers have pressed ahead. Then the
department found that the change could make women, older
students and students with lower incomes less likely to
participate. Again, Ministers pressed ahead.
This is not just a matter of fairness or even just about
the benefit of having a diverse working population. In
fact, older nursing graduates, to take the nursing
profession in particular, are more likely to stay longer in
the NHS and are more likely to choose areas such as mental
health or learning disability nursing, which are facing
such severe staff shortages. Nearly two-thirds of
postgraduate nursing students are over 25, more than a
quarter are from minority ethnic groups and 80% are women,
so the impact of today’s regulations will surely be even
worse than the previous cuts.
I welcome the golden hellos to postgrad students in
specific hard-to-recruit disciplines, but the Government
need to do much more to financially support postgraduate
students.
Even if the Government are determined to make the change,
there are good reasons not to make it now. This policy
would move postgraduate nursing students over to the main
student finance system, which means dealing with the
Student Loans Company. There is every reason to believe
that that company may not be ready. In recent weeks, the
Government have been dealing with an error made by the
company that has led to 793 nurses being hit with
unexpected demands to repay accidental overpayments they
were unaware of. I do not know whether the Minister has
seen the recent NAO report on the company, but that also
gives great pause for thought about whether it is able to
accept this new responsibility. It strikes me that, before
embarking on these regulations, we have the flagship review
of higher education. The Government could have allowed that
review to take account of this matter, rather than going
ahead with the change today.
My final point is about student finances in general, and
the impact on the Government. How many postgraduate
students affected by this policy will repay any or all of
their additional loan? How is this financially sustainable?
Or is it just another example of what the Treasury Select
Committee called a “fiscal illusion”—in this case, a
student financial system that allows the Government to
pretend that they have made a saving when all they are
doing is passing the bill to the next generation?
It is little wonder that the devolved nations have retained
the NHS bursary system. We in England should do the same. I
beg to move.
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(LD)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, , we, too,
oppose the introduction of these regulations—and for very
similar reasons. It always makes sense to make policy based
on evidence and on the advice of experts. This is what the
Government have failed to do in relation to the funding of
student nurses. The removal of the bursaries for
undergraduate nurses has already considerably reduced the
number of applicants, and the number of those taking up a
place was 705 lower last year than the year before. Given
the 40,000 nurse vacancies that the noble Lord mentioned,
this is a serious matter for patient safety, as pointed out
by the Care Quality Commission. I accept that these are
only one year’s figures, but I believe that, before
upsetting the apple cart even further, the Government
should postpone removing bursaries from postgraduate nurse
trainees and other important groups until we have clear
evidence of the effect on the number of undergraduate
student nurses.
If we want to increase the number of registered nurses
quickly, which we need to do, it makes more sense to
support the two-year postgraduate route, not put it at risk
by removing those bursaries, too—because this is the
quickest way to get more nurses. Most suppliers of the
two-year courses indicate that capacity could be increased
by 50% given the right financial support, yet the
Government are planning to deter applicants by removing the
bursary. This does not make sense. Instead, the Government
are focusing on the two four-year routes into nursing, yet
the apprenticeship route is not providing the expected
1,000 extra nurses per year. The most recent data tells us
that there are only 30 apprentice nurses—hardly a success.
Will the Government look into the barriers that are
preventing NHS employers taking on apprentices? It could be
the 60% cut in funding for further professional
development, which has affected the number of those who
would like to become training assessors and mentors for
student nurses and apprentices.
Nursing associates have a role both as assistants to
registered nurses and as users of an alternative four-year
route into nursing—but, again, it takes a long time and
these associates, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said,
should not while training ever be seen as substitutes for
fully qualified nurses. So why are the Government planning
to deter applicants for the rapid postgraduate route, where
64% are over 25, where they are predominantly women and
where they are more diverse than the general student
population? In a career such as nursing it would be
advantageous to attract people with a little more life
experience than the average 18 year-old.
Also, we know that older women and ethnic minority students
are more debt-averse, as well as already having a student
debt of up to £50,000 from their first degree. Therefore,
it is vital to look at how this fast route into nursing
could be supported. The RCN tells us that, if the fees were
paid and a modest bursary towards living costs provided,
the total would be less than the average annual premium
paid by trusts over a single year for a full-time agency
nurse. This is short-termism of the worst kind.
While the Government carry out their review of post-18
education, they might benefit from looking at the measures
introduced in Wales by AM, the Liberal
Democrat Minister in the Welsh Government responsible for
medical education. Her conversations with students revealed
that the main concern and deterrent was not fees but living
costs. Therefore, she has introduced the equivalent of the
minimum wage for students during their course. This method
of student funding should be carefully considered by the
Government while carrying out their review, particularly
for nursing students, who have more contact time than other
students because of their clinical placement and therefore
less time to get a part-time job to support themselves.
Will the Government please consider this sensible idea?
The House of Commons Select Committee on Health and Social
Care stated that the nursing workforce should be expanded
at scale and pace to avoid dangerous levels of vacancies.
It should be based on need and demand rather than
affordability. It is up to the Government to say how the
money will be raised, but from these Benches we recommend
some sort of hypothecated taxation or a reformed national
insurance scheme which is truly progressive and
demonstrates intergenerational fairness. The Liberal
Democrats are also in favour of restoring the bursaries for
undergraduate student nurses and we are against these new
regulations, which would remove the bursary from
postgraduate nursing students and other important health
professional courses.
7.45 pm
-
(CB)
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interests as
listed in the register and I congratulate the noble Lord,
Lord Hunt, on securing this debate.
I should like to put my contribution in context. At
lunchtime I came back from Geneva, where I had been at the
World Health Organization working with the International
Council of Nurses, representatives from the Nursing Now
campaign and the Chief Nursing Officer of the WHO in
looking at the future of the profession. One of the big
discussions was on the need to increase the number of
nurses worldwide and to ensure that we have health security
across the globe. A major topic of discussion was, not
surprisingly, the re-emergence of Ebola in the Congo. At
least one Health Minister asked me how, as a country, we
could really justify a recent advertisement from, I
believe, the Home Office, encouraging nurses with a
two-year graduate qualification to come to this country.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has outlined the key concerns
over extending the normal student maintenance regime to
nursing students undertaking programmes at postgraduate
level. As others have said, these programmes take two
years, including theory and practice, and enable successful
students to register as nurses with the NMC. I do not need
to remind noble Lords that this is an intensive programme
with significant periods of work in a practical setting.
The aim of introducing new systems of funding was to
increase the number of nursing students, yet on
undergraduate programmes this was not achieved in the 2017
intake, where a fall took place, particularly in
applications for mental health and learning disability
nursing courses. Why should there not be a similar fall in
the number of students entering the postgraduate programmes
this year if the change takes place? In effect, this would
result in an even more significant drop in the number of
nurses qualifying in 2020, in that the undergraduate
numbers due to qualify in 2020 will be much lower than
originally planned. If we could boost the postgraduate
intake numbers for 2018, this could provide additional
nurses ready for registration in 2020—just as they will be
so desperately needed according to the NHS Five Year
Forward View.
Therefore, does it not make sense to delay the
implementation of the regulations while a systematic review
of post-18 education funding is undertaken and retain the
current system of funding for the group due to commence in
2018? This would provide us with an opportunity to run a
campaign to increase the numbers for this year in the way
that campaigns have been conducted to attract people to
social work and teaching programmes in areas where there
are similar staffing challenges.
We know that sufficient levels of registered nurses are
critical for the health and social care system to ensure
patient and client safety. The sombre reading of both the
Francis report and the learning disabilities mortality
review remind us that not only do we need to retain our
current staff but that we must train new nurses to further
enhance the quality of our provision.
Graduates who enter postgraduate nursing programmes add
value to our workforce, bringing a range of life skills. In
particular, many mature entrants come into mental health
nursing through the post-graduate route, and yet we know we
are not meeting the numbers required to meet mental health
services workforce demands.
I recognise that the Government have offered a new pay deal
for nurses that may improve retention and recruitment and
plan to offer golden hellos in some hard-to-recruit areas
for nurses entering the profession, both of which I have
expressed my support for and hope will be effective.
However, until the new degree apprenticeship routes into
nursing at both undergraduate and postgraduate level are
properly designed and funded through the apprenticeship
levy, I urge the Government to think again and to wait to
introduce the reform we are discussing today.
NHS Providers reminds us that plans to boost the NHS
workforce will take years to deliver, but to change this
decision for at least one year would result in a larger
cadre of nurses qualifying in only two years. I urge this
because society expects us as policymakers to ensure safe
healthcare in the NHS. This, I argue, cannot be achieved
without a sufficient supply of newly qualified nurses and
allied healthcare professionals.
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(Lab)
My Lords, I find the Government’s approach to NHS staff
very perplexing indeed. They continually pay tribute to
them, and I think they do understand the commitment of the
workforce, yet repeatedly they take action that makes the
life of nurses and other staff even more difficult than it
is at the moment. At the same time, they make it more
difficult for those nurses to guarantee the safety of
patients in our NHS.
I congratulate my noble friend on drawing this SI to the
attention of the House and allowing us an opportunity to
debate this critical issue. In making my case today, I
accept the points made by the noble Baronesses from the
Liberals and the Cross Benches—they were absolutely right
in the points that they made. But let us remind ourselves
of the serious situation we are in. The points I am going
to make now are agreed right across the National Health
Service; points which every royal college and every
responsible organisation in the health service agree with.
The first point has been raised already: we are 40,000
nurses short, and the Government have a real responsibility
for that. The number of nurses and midwives leaving the
profession is greater than the number of those entering the
profession—that is a recipe for disaster. We have
critically relied not only on nurses from the far ends of
the globe but especially on nurses from the European Union.
Since the Brexit vote, they are deserting the National
Health Service, and who can blame them?
Let me go right back to 2010, when this Government assumed
office. That is when they started making massive errors,
from which they have not recovered. Neither, critically,
has the National Health Service. In an Answer to me, the
noble Viscount, Lord Younger, pointed out that, when they
assumed office, there were more than 97,000 entrants to
nursing courses. The coalition Government’s first response
was cut, cut, cut, and by 2012 the figure had dropped from
over 97,000 to 75,000, a drop of 22,000 nurses entering the
profession in one year alone. The figure improves
marginally but does not get much better for many years.
When I say the Government are 40,000 nurses short, it is
because of their mistake in 2012 in cutting the numbers of
young people and older students entering the nursing
profession. We have never recovered from that.
I accept the point that the Government want to widen the
area of recruitment—I will come back to that—but, having
made the mistake in 2012, only two years ago they scored
another own goal by abolishing the bursary scheme and
introducing a charge of over £9.000 a year for people
training for the nursing profession. Last year that led to
a drop of 705 students. I admit that is not the same as the
22,000 drop the Government were responsible for in 2012 but
we cannot afford any drop whatever. Now, having created a
serious recruitment policy, they are introducing even more
costs into the system by this SI we are discussing today.
It is affecting older graduate entrants, those who do
postgraduate courses and usually graduate after about 18
months or two years, which is the quickest way to get
qualified nurses, as we have already heard.
However, the Government do not seem to have learned
anything. The point from the Liberal Front Bench was well
made when the noble Baroness pointed out that the cost of
training a postgraduate student was £33,500—a lot of
money—but we should not forget the cost of the agency
nurses needed to fill that vacancy. That £33,500 cost is
less than the average annual premium paid by trusts for a
full-time equivalent nurse filling a post that is vacant
because of shortages. It is a false economy and yet the
Government do not seem able to see the picture in the
round, which is the position we should be looking at.
There are other ways in which the Government could ease the
nursing situation. Instead of bringing forward SIs such as
those we are discussing at the moment, if they have got a
bursary scheme, as they have, why do they not write off the
cost of repaying the student loan for nurses who have spent
a number of years in the National Health Service? One of
the Minister’s predecessors said that the Government were
looking at a similar proposal for doctors but I never saw
whether it materialised. However, that would be one way of
equalising the situation.
Many nurses from European Union countries and other
National Health Service workers have got permanent
residence status to live in Britain. After five or six
years, they were entitled to apply for permanent residency,
and they got it. To me, and to most nurses, permanent
residency means just that: you have residence in this
country which is permanent, but the Government will not
admit that. They say that the permanency may not be
honoured after Brexit. That is a terrible thing to say. A
British Government are breaking their word to people who
work in the health service and give so much. Why not say
that those people who have permanent residency can remain
in this country permanently? That would do a lot to retain
the confidence of EU nurses.
I shall finish with a word about financing nursing
apprenticeships. As we have heard, the Government’s target
of 1,000 apprentices in nursing has not only fallen short,
it has fallen ridiculously short. The Minister may have
more up-to-date information than either I or the Royal
College of Nursing have, but its figures show that there
are not 1,000 apprentice nurses, there are 30. Of course,
one of the difficulties lies in the whole concept. An
apprenticeship requires a mix of work on the ward and work
in the classroom at university, but that is exactly what
undergraduate nurses do at the moment. Over the three-year
period, 50% of their time is spent working—I emphasise that
word—on the wards. Why should they pay more than £9,000
when apprentices may get that for nothing—or is it nothing?
The universities which provide the classroom opportunities
for these apprenticeships tell me that they have no
alternative but to charge for them. I do not think that the
apprenticeship levy will cover it because they are talking
in terms of £7,000 a year for apprentices to do the
university courses for their apprenticeship. I wonder who
is going to pay that £7,000. Is it to be the student, or is
it the trusts which are already hard pressed, or is it the
Government? Most of us would agree that it ought to be the
Government. It is their baby, their scheme and how they see
the gap being filled—their salvation to ease the nursing
shortage. It is the Government’s responsibility.
We are debating a statutory instrument, which shows how ill
thought through and chaotic the Government’s policies are
when it comes to nurse training in this country.
8.00 pm
-
(LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak briefly in support of the noble
Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend Lady Walmsley, who set
the scene very comprehensively for us. I note that these
regulations came into force on 7 May, so presumably any
impact we can have on them is going to be retrospective at
best.
I share the concerns about adults coming back into the
nursing workforce. They will be more risk averse but by and
large they are invaluable members of the nursing community,
so putting them off seems extremely foolish. I also share
the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Clark, about the
apprenticeship route, which obviously has got off to a very
slow start. I think that the health fraternity is finding
it complex working out how the apprenticeships are going to
fit in. In due course degree apprenticeships may be able to
take up some of the slack, but it will be a long time
before that happens and certainly it will not be quick
enough to solve the nursing shortfall that we are
experiencing at the moment.
Equally, as the noble Lord, Lord Clark, also said, we must
take into account the fact that EU nurses are leaving in
droves at the moment because they find this country
unwelcoming, as indeed are EU workers in a number of other
sectors as well. That situation is not going to get better.
I will therefore add my voice to those asking for a delay
in implementing these damaging proposals until there has
been time for a full impact assessment, or at least until
the review of post-18 education and training has reported.
The NHS is too important to be left to chance like this,
and with a crisis in the nursing workforce, this is not the
time to embark on measures that will do nothing but worsen
the position. I urge the Minister to think again.
-
(Lab)
My Lords, I will probably not be quite as brief as the
noble Baroness, Lady Garden, but I support the Motion of my
noble friend Lord Hunt. In doing so, I hope to help the
Minister with some experiences from the past, which I think
are very germane.
My noble friend Lord Hunt and I entered this House on
exactly the same day: 5 November 1997. He came as someone
with great authority and experience in the National Health
Service; I came from a terribly different world, with the
specific job of working for the right honourable —now the noble Lord, , then the Secretary of State for Education. We
had a crisis in teaching and with teachers. I commend to
the House the front page of the Times Educational
Supplement from 6 April. It states:
“Missing: 47,000 secondary teachers. In a system already
struggling to fill the gaps, some are thinking the
unthinkable: is it time for teaching without teachers?”
I would add this: is it time for nursing without nurses?
The situation is very serious because any possibility that
the Minister and his department have of resolving the
problem depends entirely on the pipeline supplied by the
teaching profession. That has a time factor attached to it,
which is very important. It took the Blair Government—I
worked constantly at the department for education—six years
to get back to equilibrium after the teaching crisis. We
were short of around 47,000 teachers—ironically, almost
exactly the same number that we are short of today.
Here is the problem: a demographic bulge will hit us in
2024. At that point, we will be short of something close to
50,000 secondary teachers. It is totally predictable; we
can see it coming. It happens to be coming at a time when
the number of graduates entering the profession are,
necessarily, quite light because of an inverted
demographic. I am sure that the noble Lord, , will
understand and attest to the figures I am giving. We had an
enormous problem. This Government have an enormous problem,
and the less they solve their educational pipeline problem,
by ensuring that there are enough teachers in the system,
the worse the nursing problem will get.
I commend the past to the Minister. We learned a powerful
lesson between 1997 and 2003. Unless the Minister wants to
revisit a similar lesson in the National Health Service, he
must address this issue now.
-
(LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, , for reminding us of
those days, which were both terrifying—I say that as an
ex-educationalist—and exciting. Meeting the challenge,
based on an evidence base, enables you to move forward. I
declare an interest, having worked for the past few years
for Health Education England since its formation as a
non-departmental body, following the 2012 Act.
What I find terribly sad about this SI is the lack of
evidence behind the move. I do not know, and I suspect very
few people in this House know, whether the move to an
all-graduate profession—treating nursing graduates the same
as teaching graduates or graduates going into law or other
professions—should be done on a loan system. There is an
argument for that, but in reality, we have absolutely no
evidence to demonstrate that it will be effective,
particularly at undergraduate level. Like many Members of
the House, I look forward to the student funding review,
because at least we will get that evidence base, which will
be put before both Houses.
I find what I think is behind this deeply disappointing.
Your Lordships spent many months debating the Health and
Social Care Act 2012. There were a lot of fierce arguments.
One of the reasons why the then coalition Government put
forward the proposals was to take many of the decisions,
particularly about staffing and education, out of the
political arena and give them to an NDPB, to allow them to
plan ahead. Health Education England was created for that
very purpose. This is doing the exact opposite. It is
pointless having an organisation which is there to plan a
workforce and then taking away the means by which it can
generate that workforce, be it at undergraduate or
postgraduate level. It saddens me that after some of the
excellent things that have been introduced—I declare an
interest as having been involved with the nursing associate
proposal—the belief is still peddled that this is somehow
substitution. It should not be, it is not and it must not
be a substitution. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is absolutely
right to make that point: we do not want to move back to a
lower quality simply to produce more people.
Will the Minister give us an idea of the quality,
particularly at undergraduate level? I am sure that he will
say that while we might not have as many applicants, we
still have as many actual posts and that the quality of
people applying for those posts is going up. I can find no
evidence at all in the HESA survey that that is actually
happening. If it is, I will celebrate it, and I am sure the
Minister will tell us. The issue I want to raise—it is why
I have spoken in this debate—concerns one of the great
areas of weakness at the moment, and that is our ability to
recruit and retain mental health nurses. This is a massive
issue, and not simply for traditional reasons but because
the demographics and the epidemiology show that ever more
of us who, like your Lordships, have an average age of
70-plus are likely to have a mental health problem as part
of their comorbidities as they get older. Few of us can
deny that.
I am working at the moment at how we can provide the mental
health workforce in 10 or 15 years’ time. I look around at
where there is a stream of potential workers who could come
in, and frankly it is at postgraduate level, using
psychology graduates. I can tell the House that over the
last three years, 49,466 psychology graduates have come out
of our universities, yet we have a dire shortage of
postgraduate mental health nurses. Instead of proposing, as
my work does, that we really target these people to try to
fill this gap in relatively quick time, this SI is saying
that that is no longer possible, that these people with
debts already from their university days—their
undergraduate days—will now face having to fund work in a
specialist area. Will the Government look seriously not
just at narrow shortages but at wholesale shortages, which
we certainly have in mental health nursing? Can we find a
better way of attracting and retaining these people?
I finish with three brief questions. We are going to get,
through the NHS and indeed through private sector
organisations, 0.5% of their payroll being spent on the
apprenticeship levy. I ask the Minister whether trusts and
private sector organisations, particularly those in adult
social care, will be able to use part of that levy to
create in-house bursaries to support the development of
staff. As yet we have not talked about the role of other
sectors in bringing these people through. Will that be
possible?
Secondly, if the Minister says, “Ah, no, BEIS says that you
can use this money only if it is for apprenticeships”, are
we able to rebadge postgraduate work in nursing, in the
different fields, through the levy to provide the
bursary—and, of course, fee remission—as a result of that
route? There is a big pool of money coming in here, which
could be used much more effectively.
Thirdly and finally, I ask the Minister, in trying to solve
this conundrum, to make an assurance to this House that it
is quality that we want and quality we must give to the
people of the UK—particularly the people of England, to
which this SI applies—rather than quick fixes in other
ways, which I am sure will come down the track if we do not
resolve this matter now.
8.15 pm
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of
Health and Social Care (Lord O’Shaughnessy) (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on
securing this debate, and express my gratitude to all noble
Lords for speaking. I always welcome the high profile that
issues relating to NHS staffing receive in this House and I
am always pleased to debate our approach with noble Lords,
who I know are motivated by a desire to protect and promote
our world-class NHS, and bring both wisdom and expertise.
I will start by explaining the overall rationale behind the
reforms that the Government are making. The decision to
remove bursaries for nursing, midwifery and allied health
profession students and to provide them with access to the
student loan system was taken by the Department of
Health—as was—in the 2015 spending review. One reason for
that was that this group of students had access to less
money through the NHS bursary system than students in the
student loan system. By moving to the loan system, these
students now typically receive a 25% increase in the
financial resources available to them for living costs
during their time at university.
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Before the Minister goes one second further, will he
confirm that the bursary money was free money? They did not
have to pay that back. Now they have to pay back the whole
loan.
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Lord O’Shaughnessy
If the noble Lord will let me finish, I will get to that
point. Like other graduates, student nurses will be
required to repay these government-funded loans only once
they are in employment and earning. It is important to
state that the student loan repayment terms are
progressive. From April 2018, individuals will make their
contribution to the system only when they are earning more
than £25,000. Monthly repayments are linked to income, not
to interest rates or the amount borrowed, and the
outstanding debt is written off after 30 years.
I am not the Education Minister in this House, although I
seem to be covering this topic not only tonight but in
other forums, but it is important to underline that the
reason this system was introduced into this country by a
Labour Government, reaffirmed by a coalition Government and
continued by a Conservative Government, is that it means
that the best-earning graduates, instead of having their
fees entirely paid by taxpayers, including people who have
never gone to university, make a contribution to the costs
incurred, whereas those who are lower-earning through their
lives, including those who will perhaps never earn more
than £25,000, will make no contribution. That is a more
progressive system of funding than one in which everybody
gets it for free, no matter how much money they make in
their life.
As I said, these reforms give student nurses access to more
financial support, albeit they have to pay that back if
they can afford to do so later in life. It also provides a
level playing field with other students. But perhaps most
importantly of all, these actions released about £1 billion
of funding to be reinvested in the NHS front line. As a
consequence, Health Education England plans to increase the
number of fully funded nurse training places by 25% from
September 2018. It is important to stress that Health
Education England has made that decision as an independent
body to meet the need for more nurses that we all agree is
there.
As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointed out, this equates to
around 5,000 more places each year—a major and welcome
boost to our much-admired nursing workforce. My background
is largely in education and I assure the noble Lord,
, that we understand the
urgency of this task and the parallels with education that
he mentioned.
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Is that for the clinical placement funding?
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That is quite right. That is fully funded clinical
placements—just for the sake of clarity. I thank the noble
Baroness.
There is understandable concern among noble Lords, which
has been expressed previously in this House, about the new
system of financial support, but I want to be clear that we
are giving the group of postgraduate students that we are
discussing access to undergraduate maintenance and tuition
fee loans, just as we do with postgraduate teachers. This
represents a more generous package of support than the
postgraduate master’s loan. We are also making available
additional funding for childcare, travel to clinical
placements and exceptional hardship funding to ensure that
the students are fully supported and are able to complete
their studies.
Furthermore, as many noble Lords have mentioned and as the
noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady
Watkins, welcomed, in the debate on the regulations in the
other place on 9 May, my honourable friend the Minister of
State for Health set out a range of additional support that
we are investigating for postgraduate nursing students.
This includes specific incentives such as “golden hellos”
for postgraduates who go to work in mental health—where the
noble Lord, Lord Willis, was quite right that we need to
attract more nursing and where there has been a
shortfall—the area of learning disability and community
nursing. The Government have announced £10 million to
support such incentives and we are considering how this
should be best delivered.
Many noble Lords have expressed concern about the drop in
number of undergraduate applications to nursing courses. We
acknowledge that early indications from the latest UCAS
data, published in April, show that the number of students
applying to study nursing has decreased from this point in
the cycle last year. However, that cycle is not yet over,
so we need to apply some caution.
It is also worth noting, as noble Lords have pointed out,
that there is a distinction between the decline in number
of applications and that in the number of students starting
their courses. That was exemplified last year, which showed
a 23% drop in the number of applications compared to a 3%
decline in the number of acceptances. That is regrettable,
but it was still the second-highest number of acceptances
on record. Several noble Lords have expressed their desire
for further information on how this develops. I can confirm
that my department has committed to publish an update in
autumn 2018 following the close of the 2017-18 application
cycle.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, pointed out, there is
a global challenge to recruit more nurses. We are working
hard to make nursing as attractive a profession as
possible. As a result of constructive dialogue over recent
months, NHS Employers and the relevant trade unions began a
consultation exercise on a three-year pay deal for NHS
staff employed under the Agenda for Change contract. Under
the plan, the starting salary of a nurse will rise to
£24,907 by 2021, not only rewarding current staff for the
incredible work they do but sending a clear signal to the
country about how much nurses are valued.
We are boosting the attractiveness of the profession in a
number of other ways, too. Nearly 4,500 nurses have started
the return to practice programme and 3,000 have completed
it. Across the country, NHS trusts are developing
arrangements for flexible working and there is a concerted
effort to tackle workplace bullying through an NHS-wide
call to action. Our homes for staff programme is supporting
NHS trusts to dispose of surplus land to help up to 3,000
nurses and other staff access affordable housing. I hope
that gives the noble Lord, Lord Clark, some concrete
examples to back up the warm words we use about supporting
the nursing profession.
Several noble Lords have touched on new routes into
nursing, which the Government are prioritising. The most
significant innovation in this area was the announcement of
a new nursing associate role in November 2016. Health
Education England has already trained 2,000 nursing
associates in a pilot programme and is planning to train up
to 5,000 in 2018, with up to 7,500 nursing associates
trained through the apprenticeship route in 2019. As well
as creating a much-needed new role in its own right—I
emphasise “in its own right”, as it is an augmentation to
the nursing and other professions—nursing associate
training offers an alternative route to becoming a
registered nurse. We expect this “earn and learn” approach
to be more attractive to older students, a concern which
many noble Lords have raised.
To support this career path, Health Education England is
developing a shortened nurse degree apprenticeship to
facilitate transition from nurse associate to registered
nurse, which will also automatically recognise the prior
learning and experience gained in the nursing associate
role. For the first time, apprentices will be able to work
their way up from entry-level health work through to
advanced clinical practice in nursing.
Several noble Lords expressed their concern about the
apprenticeship route and the figure of only 30 nurses. The
official data has been delayed and we believe that the
figure is more like 250. We will be able to confirm that.
It is a better start but, clearly, not yet the target that
we want to reach. However, we believe that this stepped
approach through the nursing associate role, giving the
opportunities for a pause after two years and then to go on
for two years, ought to be more attractive to employers
than the current four-year commitment. This development of
the nursing associate route therefore provides for a better
use of the apprenticeship route.
I want to address a couple of what are perhaps
misconceptions. The figure of 40,000 vacancies is used
often in this House. I might be pedantic and disagree with
that number—the quantum is just about right—but it is
important to say that these are not empty places. They are
being filled by agency and bank staff. Part of the reason
for that is that people want flexibility and more pay, two
of the things that we are trying to address so that we can
provide more permanent contracts for those people who
currently work flexibly.
The noble Lord, Lord Clark, and the noble Baroness, Lady
Garden, talked about EU staff. I hope your Lordships will
agree that I miss no opportunity to say from this Dispatch
Box how much we value those staff and that they have just
as much right to apply for settled status as anyone else in
this country, provided they fit the criteria. However, it
is worth pointing out that there are more EEA staff in the
NHS than there were in June 2016. The one category where
the figure is lower is in nursing and midwifery but the
reason for that was the introduction of a more stringent
language test. We are dealing with that issue, which I hope
will mean that we continue to see an increase in EEA staff
working in our NHS.
The noble Lord, Lord Willis, asked specific questions about
the apprenticeship levy. I will need to write to him on
that issue having consulted my colleagues in the Department
for Education.
Turning quickly to the second point of the Motion, several
noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, the noble
Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Watkins and Lady Garden,
and others said that we should postpone the introduction of
the reforms until the post-18 education and funding review
has been completed. As noble Lords know, the Prime Minister
launched the review earlier this year to ensure that we
have a better system of higher education support that works
for everyone. Many aspects of the current system work well
and, as was set out in the terms of reference for the
review, there are important principles that the Government
believe should remain in future. One of those is that
sharing the cost between taxpayers and graduates is the
right approach, as I rehearsed earlier in my speech.
I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley,
about looking at the Welsh example. I have looked at it
myself and I am sure it is something that the review would
want to consider. However, it is important that we do not
prejudice the work of the expert panel established to
support the review or prejudge its outcomes. The fact of
the review should not delay these healthcare education
reforms, not least because they predate the launch of the
review by some distance and already apply to the vast
majority of nursing students. We believe it would do more
harm than good to further delay these reforms, although it
is worth underlining that any relevant reforms stemming
from the review will apply equally to this group of student
nurses.
In conclusion, I recognise the well-motivated concerns
expressed by noble Lords during this debate. However, I
hope I have been able to demonstrate that the student
finance reforms that this Government have introduced have
allowed both the removal of the artificial cap on nurse
training places and the largest expansion of student
nursing places in a single year ever seen. These two facts
are not coincidental; they are inextricably linked. The
latter is possible only because of the former and they form
part of a wider set of workforce reforms designed to
expand, train and reward our nursing profession better so
that we can continue to deliver the high standards of NHS
care that patients demand. On that basis, I hope the noble
Lord, Lord Hunt, will feel able to withdraw his Motion.
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My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken
in this debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady
Watkins, who returned early from the WHO to take part in
it.
I am left, though, with huge concerns and a real puzzlement
as to the Government’s approach. As the noble Lord, Lord
Willis, said, faced with this huge crisis in nursing in
particular but also among the other professions covered by
the regulation, the Government, without any evidence base,
seem to be setting out a plan to discourage older women and
people from black and minority ethnic groups from entering
nursing, midwifery and other professions. In the breakdown
of postgraduate healthcare students, the statistics show
clearly that 64% are over the age of 25, women are largely
attracted to this route and there is a higher percentage of
minority ethnic students. We also know from the Department
for Education’s own analysis that those groups are known to
be more debt-averse. So the consequence is bound to be a
negative impact on the very group of people we probably
most need to come into the nursing profession.
8.30 pm
The Minister justifies that by saying that loans are higher than
bursaries. That is one way of putting it but, of course,
bursaries are grants and loans are loans, and the fact is that to
many people a debt is a debt. I really worry about the
Government, who are seeking say, “Don’t worry, you can run up a
huge debt because the chances are that you’re not going to have
to repay it”. The Minister has lectured me about economic policy
in the past but I have to say that this is the most extreme
example of “funny money” I have ever come across. He tried to
reference it back to the Labour Government, but I remind him that
we never intended that the amount of fees that would have to be
paid would reach anything like what they are now. We believed in
a shared responsibility; the current Government believe in
transferring all responsibility to students.
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I do not want to get into an argument about funny money and
magic money trees, but it is worth pointing out that the
proposal to treble student fees came from the Browne
review, which was instigated by a Labour Government, and
indeed the 2010 Labour manifesto committed a future Labour
Government to implementing the findings of that review.
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I would add that the Browne recommendations had no cap at
all.
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My Lords, I would pray in aid my noble friend , who sadly is not here
tonight, and take the Minister back to the original intent
of the loans that we introduced.
The Minister does not seem to have responded at all to the
issue that, essentially, we are transferring this debt to
future generations. At some point, the fact that so little
of the loans is being paid back will have to be confronted.
The Minister justifies increasing the number of places now
on the basis that at some time in the future some
Government are going to be faced with a massive problem. So
not only are we discouraging some of the most important
people that we want from coming into the profession, but we
are also engaging in the most extraordinary financial
trickery to justify current expenditure.
The Minister mentioned apprenticeships and associates. Of
course we should welcome apprenticeships, and I welcome the
associate profession, which is a good thing. However, the
problem is that we know what the health service gets up to.
We know that directors of nurses do not have as much
influence on boards as they need, and that NHS trusts up
and down the country will substitute associates for
qualified general nurses whenever they can. Given the
debacle of the whole apprenticeship approach, in putting
all our eggs into that basket we are very much risking the
future of this profession.
My noble friend talked about the problem
that it takes a long time to recover from a situation of
drastic shortage, and my noble friend Lord Clark talked
about some of the implications. When you see a car crash
about to happen, you usually attempt to stop it. I see this
policy as putting the foot on the accelerator, leading to
an inevitable crisis.
However, this was debated in the other place. I see no
purpose in prolonging the debate. I hope that, under the
auspices of the review of student finance, the Government
will start to think again. I beg leave to withdraw the
Motion.
Motion withdrawn.
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