The decision to stop granting bursaries to students on nursing and courses for allied health professionals was made in 2017, replacing this financial support with student loans. The consequences of the decision by the then Conservative Chancellor George Osborne has been detrimental to both students and their universities.
As we are all aware, there is a shortage of nurses, with jobs outweighing the numbers of qualified nurses by an estimated 70 000. Following the scrapping of the bursary there was a drop of 13 000 in first-time nursing student numbers in 2018, widening further the gap between job vacancies and available nurse numbers. It is quite likely that the scrapping of this major support for nursing students has made many think twice about whether or not to choose nursing. This drop in student numbers will, in turn, affect the number of home-grown nurses that the country produces, especially in fields such as mental health.
In my own experience, without a bursary, managing my time has added extra pressure in terms of finding a balance between my study life and keeping myself financially stable.
First, and probably the most obvious, is the effect that the lack of a bursary has on a student's finances. When you begin a course, as well as throughout it, you need to keep yourself financially stable. However, without the aid of a bursary, this can result in financial stress, leading individuals such as myself having to continue to work, as well as studying.
I appreciate that there is a lot of experience to be gained from practical placements, where I can apply the knowledge that I have gained in the academic setting. However, having to work on top of a full week of academic studying or undertaking a practical placement presents challenges.
For example, in the first year, we were involved in undertaking a placement alongside working on an assignment. Considering that the standard placement week consists of 37.5 hours of work, having to work in a paid job to keep financially stable in addition to this did not leave much good-quality time to spend on assignments. Due to the time constraints that came with having to combine the placement with work, I found myself at points being quite brief and surface-researching topics for the assignment. The stress this placed on my academic and practical performance was clear for me to see—at points I found myself becoming overly tired and not performing to the best of my abilities in either area, because the workload was unmanageable and did not allow for any personal time to unwind and relax.
This inevitably results in one's work–life balance occasionally coming to a halt and the course becoming your sole life. Family, friends, taking time to unwind and looking after your own health has to take a back seat when the workload is high, and unfortunately this happens quite regularly.
I understand that, in many respects, studying at university is challenging, however, the system as it stands leads me to question whether it can produce the best quality nurses that we can have or whether it will produce burned out nursing students before they have even had the chance to qualify.
It is well known that stress can affect all parts of a student's life, from their ability to retain information to problem solving and ability to cope with the course. Consequently, I think that a large number of people ended up leaving the course in the first year. Within our cohort, for example, almost half of the original intake of 30 in our group are no longer on the course. As with most of the students in our cohort—and seemingly across the other disciplines (general nursing and children and young people's nursing)—most of those on the course are mature students. They are returning to study, and many have children, families and houses to look after and pay for. I think that, if they had had fewer financial worries—that is, if they had been supported with a bursary—they would have been better able to focus on the course and would still be at university.
I have personal experience in ward settings of mentors telling me that their main problem with students is that we find it hard to combine work with placements, and to ensure that our shifts coincide with those of our mentors. In most care settings, 6 weeks’ notice is required to book time off; however, students are often assigned to a mentor just 2 weeks before a placement, making it difficult for us to book the right shifts to coincide with our mentors.
Bearing all this in mind, I am so happy that the bursary is to be reintroduced, not only for my own time in nursing school, but also for the nursing students who will come after me in future. In my own case, I believe the bursary will allow me to stop working at times when workload is predicted to be high—whether this is to prepare assignments alongside undertaking a placement or when there is simply a lot of academic or practical work to be done. Having the bursary should free up more of my time to really apply myself to the best of my abilities to either my academic studies or in the practical setting, enabling me to learn as much as I can during these precious years as a student.
‘Due to the time constraints that came with having to combine the placement with work, I found myself at points being quite brief and surface-researching topics for the assignment’