Over 32,000 student nurses could drop out of their courses by the end of the next parliament, enough to fill every nursing vacancy in the NHS in England, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has today warned.
Financial pressures, over-worked services and worsening pay prospects are to blame, the college has said.
The union is warning that without action to make nursing more attractive, by easing the financial burden on students and raising pay, 32,225 people enrolled on nursing courses in England could quit their degrees by 2029.
This is based on RCN calculations and analysis of attrition rates in recent years, which the college said had seen the average student dropout rate sat at around 21% since the nursing bursary was scrapped in 2016. The RCN used data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency for its analysis.
The college has long been calling for a loan forgiveness scheme and maintenance grants for nurses who commit to working in the NHS and wider public services.
Nursing students in England currently pay tuition fees of £9,250 each year, set to rise to £9,535 in 2025.
An RCN survey of nursing students in England from earlier this year revealed seven in 10 are considering quitting due to financial pressures.
RCN general secretary and chief executive, Professor Nicola Ranger, said that high training costs and the prospect of low pay is pushing many student nurses away from the profession.
‘This is a tragedy for them and patients,’ Professor Ranger warned.
She is calling on government to ‘supercharge recruitment’ into nursing but warned that this cannot be achieved with a ‘broken education model’ or ‘more real terms pay cuts’.
‘Transforming care cannot happen without investment to transform nursing. That means changing the way we recruit into the profession and making it a more attractive career by raising pay,’ she added.
Last week, UCAS data revealed just 130 extra students had started nursing courses in England this year compared with 2023.
The 0.6% growth from year to year is equivalent to less than one additional new nurse for every single one of the 215 NHS Trusts in England.
In the NHS in England, there are 31,774 nursing posts currently vacant.
Last week the government announced its 2.8% planned pay rise for nurses working in general practice and the NHS for 2025/26.
Earlier this month an exclusive Nursing in Practice survey found that over a quarter (28%) of general practice nursing staff across the UK were considering leaving their role in the next 12 months.
In October the RCN found that student nurse numbers had fallen in every region in England.
In September England’s chief nursing officer (CNO), Ruth May, told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that the removal of the bursary student nurses was a ‘catastrophic decision’ that had a lasting impact on the nursing workforce and the Covid-19 pandemic.
A government spokesperson said: ‘These figures are speculative. As we deliver our Plan for Change, we are taking action to fix our broken NHS and ensure nursing remains an attractive career choice.
‘We have already delivered pay rises for over 1.4 million Agenda for Change staff, including nurses and together with the NHS, we will unveil a refreshed workforce plan in the summer to provide the health service with much-needed stability and certainty.’
The spokesperson said the government is working on a ‘sustainable’ funding system to support higher education, including by increasing the maximum loan for living costs in line with inflation next year.
