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Student-nurse recruitment as bad as ever, RCN says

Getty Images A student nurse sits looking at a laptop in a classroom. She has short cropped her and wears gold-rimmed glasses.Getty Images
Low recruitment figures at universities "will really impact the whole of society”, the Royal College of Nursing says

There are 21% fewer nursing students starting courses at universities across the UK than three years ago.

Universities and Colleges Admissions Service figures show 23,800 students have been accepted on to nursing courses for this academic year – 340 fewer than last year and 6,350 fewer than in 2021.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has called the situation “critical” and “as bad as it's ever been”.

Across all subjects, there has been a 0.9% rise in the number of students going to university this year compared with 2023 - the first increase in four years.

But nursing courses have seen a 1.4% drop over the past 12 months.

The 21% UK drop breaks down by nation:

  • 22% in Wales
  • 21.6% in England
  • 19.8% in Scotland
  • 10.3% in Northern Ireland

There was a surge in nursing students in 2020 and 2021 but the figures have now fallen to pre-pandemic levels.

"The pandemic had an impact," RCN England executive director Patricia Marquis said, "positively in the first stages and now negatively as we move away from the pandemic."

And the figures would "really impact the whole of society" for years to come.

'Psychological impact'

Speaking to the Covid inquiry this week, England’s former chief nurse Dame Ruth May criticised a “catastrophic decision” , in 2015, to replace the grant or bursary paid to student midwives and nurses with loans.

It had led to reduction of about 5,700 trainees in England by 2020, Dame Ruth said, which “would have made a difference” in the pandemic.

“There would have been less burnout - there would have been less psychological impact,” she said.

The RCN has called on the government to provide better financial backing for student nurses.

It also wants newly qualified nurses' starting salaries boosted from £30,000 to £35,000.

An Department of Health and Social Care official covering England said the NHS had “faced chronic workforce shortages for years" but would train “record numbers of nurses”.

The Scottish government said it provides the "highest non-repayable, non-means tested bursaries at £10,000" for student nurses and is working to develop alternative career pathways.

A Welsh government official said it "needs to consider if the current financial package remains attractive" but NHS bursaries and full maintenance support were available to eligible healthcare students.