Posted 13 July 2023 - 14:07
Posted 13 July 2023 - 14:07
News
Nurse apprenticeships popular as cheaper alternative to university
Apprentice route into nursing is massively oversubscribed, contrasting with falls in university applications, trust leader tells MPs
Apprentice route into nursing is massively oversubscribed, contrasting with falls in university applications, trust leader tells MPs
Nursing apprenticeships are soaring in popularity at one NHS trust as a financially better alternative to university degrees, according to the trust’s leader.
Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust chief executive Alex Whitfield told the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee on 12 July that nursing apprenticeships in the area were ‘massively oversubscribed’ compared with university courses, where applications are falling.
Ms Whitfield said: ‘What we see is that while the numbers of people applying for nursing degrees are falling, we are massively oversubscribed on people who want to do nursing apprenticeships – and they are often people in their early 30s.
Retention after apprenticeships is much higher because they get firsthand experience, MPs told
‘They’ve got children, mortgages, and they can’t afford to go and spend three years at university – it does play to the financial difference between both.’
Health leaders were giving evidence to the committee on the new NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, published in late June. Alongside a huge increase in nurse training places, the plan promises the biggest-ever expansion of NHS apprenticeships to help cover workforce shortfalls over the next 15 years.
Ms Whitfield told the hearing that retention following apprenticeships was much higher at her trust because apprentices gained firsthand experience on the job.
‘They know what working on a ward and a shift is like, and they know what working with patients is like. So they then are able to combine that academic journey alongside a really "open eyes" approach as to what the job is going to be at the end of it,’ she added.
RCN's Patricia Marquis highlights concerns about apprenticeship route
Her comments followed criticism of the increase in nursing apprenticeships by RCN director for England Patricia Marquis, who highlighted concerns from her own apprenticeship route into the profession.
Ms Marquis said: ‘I can speak from personal experience about being put in positions where I was doing things way outside of the scope of what I should have been doing, with the amount of education and supervision that I had.’
Critics of the workforce plan have said it lacks a strategy to retain experienced staff and clarity on how extra nurses and nurse apprentices will be trained and paid for.
Ms Marquis warned MPs that the plan was a ‘lofty set of aspirations’ without any detail on how they will be delivered.
Apprenticeships widen access and are important way into nursing, says NHS England
‘What we’ve got is a plan that’s trying to solve a retention crisis with recruitment, and that’s not really the way to do it,’ she added.
NHS England chief workforce, training and education officer Navina Evans was asked what NHS England was doing to ramp up the number of people studying nursing. She said: ‘So many people are telling us… that they can't afford it. So the apprenticeship widening access is a really important way and the apprenticeship route is something that has become very popular.’
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