Increase in universities applying to run nursing courses

The loss of student bursaries has led to an increase in universities applying to run nursing courses, according to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

The change is linked back to November last year when the government first announced it was planning to scrap bursaries for pre-registration nursing students in England and replace them with tutition fees and loans.

At the same time, the government announced it would lift the cap on training places, to allow 10,000 extra nurses to study each year.

The NMC was unable to give an exact number on how many additional institutions had applied. 

However, papers for the NMC's council meeting on 30 November showed two institutions – the University of Portsmouth and University of Highlands and Islands – have been successfully become approved education institutions (AEIs).

'In 2016, we received applications from a number of new providers seeking to become AEIs for the first time,' a draft report included in the papers stated.

'To date, two of those institutions have successfully gone through the process and achieved AEI status: University of Portsmouth and University of Highlands and Islands.'

Approval sought

The draft quality assurance of education and local supervising authorities report also highlighted how only one institution had sought NMC approval in the previous two years.

It also noted an increasing variety of pathways into the nursing professions.

'Providers are responding to a changing healthcare landscape, local workforce needs and the move towards widening access.'

At the NMC council meeting on November 30, council member Stephen Thornton expressed concerns over how the expansion will affect the available number of mentors in the education sector.

He said: ‘This report makes me rather anxious and my sense is we don’t have the resources – either people or financial.’

Director of nursing and midwifery education, standards and policy Geraldine Walters said the adequate provision of appropriately qualified mentors had emerged as the most significant risk area identified in the report.

She said: ‘Where we identify problems – such as lack of mentors or students not getting quick enough access to their mentor – we have to look at why that is happening.’

She added the usual procedure was for the NMC to help struggling institutions create an action plan to improve staffing resources.

NMC Council chair Dame Janet Finch acknowledged how much more open and competitive the higher education market had become, and urged her colleagues to be ‘mindful of how the system as a whole is managing quality assurance across the sector’.

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