‘Catastrophic’ bursary cut left NHS short of nurses in pandemic
Posted 17 September 2024 - 15:00
Former chief nurse tells COVID inquiry abolition of NHS nursing student bursary in England was to blame for some of the nurse staffing shortfall seen during the pandemic
Every hospital in England was 40 nurses short going into the pandemic thanks to the ‘catastrophic’ decision to end the student bursary, the former chief nurse for England said.
Dame Ruth May told the COVID-19 inquiry on Tuesday that the then government’s 2017 decision to scrap the nursing student bursary left the NHS with 5,000 fewer nurses at the start March 2020 than it would have otherwise had.
Removal of NHS bursary squeezed nursing degree applications, undermining nurse workforce in pandemic
‘There was a 23% drop in nursing and midwifery applications as a result of that,’ Dame Ruth told inquiry chair Baroness Hallett.
‘Health Education England has done analysis that we were 5,000 fewer nurses in March 2020 because of that decision and 700 fewer midwives. 5,000 fewer nurses because of the bursary decision. I reckon that would be around 40 extra nurses in each hospital. That would have made a difference.
‘I’m confident if we’d had more nurses there would be less burnout, less psychological impact. Removing the bursary was a catastrophic decision.’
‘It was an utter privilege to be a nurse during the pandemic. It gave me a real-life experience of what it was like to wear full PPE’
Dame Ruth May, former chief nurse for England, giving evidence to the COVID-19 inquiry
Hospital shifts during pandemic gave me powerful insight into what nurses faced
Dame Ruth, who retired from the chief nursing officer role in July 2024, fought back tears as she recalled her time working ‘under the radar’ during lockdown, both at a temporary ‘Nightingale hospital’ and at the critical care unit at Colchester Hospital in Essex.
‘It was an utter privilege to be a nurse, to work during the pandemic,’ she said, appearing to be choked with emotion. ‘I did two shifts at the Nightingale and I actually nursed a nurse. I also worked in ICU on a Sunday morning, under the radar.
‘I worked alongside colleagues; there was death, there weren’t visitors, nursing ratios were stretched but it was very powerful, because I was able to go back then to Matt Hancock the secretary of state, and go: “This is what my recommendation is.”.
‘It gave me a real-life experience of what it was like to wear full PPE. I was a theatre nurse by background so was used to wearing masks. But they gave lots of nurses including myself indents in my cheeks, then there was eye protection, the gown and the gloves. It frankly took ages to get everything on and off. Nurses were at the brunt of this.’
Funding for nursing education is the only way to reverse the damage caused – RCN
Responding to Dame Ruth’s evidence, RCN general secretary Nicola Ranger said: ‘The removal of government funding for nursing places is still being felt today with tens of thousands of vacant posts across the whole of health and care and there remains a collapse in the number of people applying to join the nursing profession.
‘The only way to reverse this is through funding for nursing education, such as a loan forgiveness model that attracts and retains more people into the profession and does not leave nurses deep in debt as they begin their career.’
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