Nursing students vow to step up campaign to save bursaries

Protesting nursing and midwifery students have vowed to step up their fight to save bursaries, with an hour’s walkout in support of striking junior doctors.

The union Unite estimated that between 7,000 and 10,000 people braved the rain to march on Downing Street on Saturday – although the Metropolitan Police claimed the figure was closer to 5,000.

Similar simultaneous events took place in Manchester, Middlesbrough and Newcastle.

London march co-organiser and final-year nursing student Danielle Tiplady was particularly delighted to see junior doctors take part. She received audible support from the crowd when she urged nursing students to stop work for an hour during a proposed doctors' walkout on February 10.

Unions including Unite, Unison and the BMA took part and the RCN was well represented – president Cecilia Anim, general secretary Janet Davies, and student council chair Sylvia Duval were all there.

Ms Davies addressed the crowd at the gates of Downing Street. She spoke of how ‘inspiring’ the passion and dedication on display had been.

Vowing ‘to fight all the way’ she added: ‘My message to the government is don’t dumb our NHS, keep paying for the education of nurses and make sure that we preserve nursing for the future.’

Ms Duval said afterwards: ‘Bursaries are an essential financial support and without them many of us here today wouldn’t be able to fulfil our dream of becoming a nurse.

‘Taking away these grants and replacing them with hefty loans will only pile on more personal financial pressure to an already over-stretched part of the health care workforce.’

Danielle Jenkins, second year mental health student at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.

‘We are coming together today for the students that are going to come after us.

‘I feel very lucky that I have been supported by the bursary and I could not have done this course without it.

‘Most mature students feel the same.

‘I am a mum of two, one of which was born during my training, and it is vitally important that this type of support continues for the future generations.

‘You don't get paid for the time you are on placement and now they expect us to pay to be there in the first place.

‘It shows a real lack of understanding by George Osborne.

‘I don't think we are going to be listened to despite this protest as we care for people with long-term health problems and sadly this just doesn't seem to be a demographic the Tory government is concerned about.’

Among the marchers were Helen Corry, a second year adult nursing student from King's College London.

She said: ‘The government is making it harder to become a nurse at a time when the profession is in crisis and they should be doing all they can to make it easier. I challenge Jeremy Hunt and George Osborne to spend just one day on placement with us and see if they still want to do this to us by the end.’

Renée Barrett, a post-graduate children's nursing student, also from King's College London said: ‘There has been a massive recruitment drive to get nurses from overseas because we don't have enough.

‘Jeremy Hunt is destroying the profession by making it not worth the effort to join. Nursing is not a career path financially, we do it because we love it. We don't want to stop doing the thing we love.'

Stuart Marshall, a third-year mental health student from University of the West of England, said: ‘The bursary provides a key route into the profession for people who otherwise would not get the chance. Hopefully we can stop this massive mistake.

Alice Malcolm, a third-year children's nurse from King's College London, said: ‘It was great to see so much support for our cause today.

‘It is a disgrace that we don't get enough acknowledgement from the government for the work we do. We know we aren't at the level of a fully qualified nurse, but we are their support and we need everyone's help to stay in our jobs.’

Anger has been growing ever since chancellor George Osborne announced the government’s intention to replace the means-tested bursary with a student loan from September 2017.

The government claims this, along with the removal of limits on the number of places on degree courses, will allow an extra 10,000 nurses to train in the next five years. Opponents say it will mean nursing students graduate with debts of up to £60,000.

A petition against scrapping the bursary, set up by nursing student Kat Barber and signed by more than 150,000 people, is due to be debated by MPs later today.

The junior doctors meanwhile are due to begin the first of their three strikes tomorrow. They will refuse to work on non-emergency cases in protest at proposed changes to their contract.