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Wednesday, 10 May 2006 09:38

BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk

One in 10 nurses training places are being cut

A poll for the magazine the Nursing Standard shows that around one in 10 nurses training places are being cut.

The magazine quizzed all 28 strategic health authorities. Of these 21 responded, with 10 saying they planned to cut training numbers by between 3% and 24% authority wide.

Paul Turner, executive officer of the Council of Deans and Heads of the UK Nursing faculties, said it looked like around one in 10 places would be lost.

"But in some cases there are more substantial reductions - 30% in one course and possibly up to 40% in another," he said.

The Royal College of Nursing, which represents nurses, said moves to cut the number of student nurses were short-sighted.

"It is madness," said RCN policy adviser Jane Naish. "We have an ageing population and workforce.

"We have already seen a decrease in the number of district nurses, and health visitor numbers are at a standstill.

"We have to have enough nurses coming through," she added.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "When we launched the NHS Plan in 2000, the public made clear their top priority was to have more staff working in the NHS.

"We delivered on that, and exceeded the targets we set. We now have over 85,000 more nurses working in the NHS in England than in 1997."

She continued: "In recent years the rate of growth has eased off. We still have record numbers working in the NHS, but the annual increase has got smaller.

"In future, as the size of the NHS workforce stabilises, our emphasis will be on staff working differently, in order to deliver more personalised services for patients”.