Nursing students join anti-austerity march in London
Nursing students marched against government plans to scrap their bursary as part of a major demonstration in London on Saturday.
The ‘bursary or bust bloc’ joined an estimated 150,000 people marching with the People's Assembly to oppose the Conservative government's austerity measures.
King’s College University nursing student Danielle Tiplady addressed a huge crowd in Trafalgar Square and said that ‘it was time for disheartened nurses to roar’.
She said chancellor George Osborne and health secretary Jeremy Hunt were 'smashing future nurses' dreams' and the NHS was on the verge 'of a cardiac arrest'.
She spoke of the passion she and other students had for their jobs and the NHS while those watching held banners with slogans including ‘Bursaries not bombs’.
The government plans to scrap the nursing bursary and replace it with student loans, which it says will allow it to provide more nurse training places, but students and healthcare unions have warned it will deter people from entering the profession.
Mental health nursing senior lecturer Julia Telfer tweeted her support, saying: ‘What a pleasure to meet such a passionate bunch of students. Makes an old nurse very proud.’
Unions including Unison and Unite also joined in the event, as well as representatives from the RCN student branch.
A consultation on how the government's bursary plan could be implemented was launched earlier this month and runs until June 30.