Covid: Record numbers apply for nursing and medicine in Wales after pandemic

Welsh universities have seen a record number of applications to study nursing and medicine this year.

Figures obtained by BBC Wales Live show applications to study child nursing at Cardiff University have gone up by 49% compared with last year.

Wrexham Glyndwr University closed applications early because of demand.

Lucy Phillips, 18, from Pembrokeshire, has a conditional offer to study child nursing at Cardiff University after working in a Covid field hospital.

She said her time working as a cleaner at the Bluestone field hospital in December made her "fall in love" with being around patients and gave her the final push to put her applications in.

"You're able to help people when they're at their most vulnerable state, and that when they're down they'll turn to people like nurses, the healthcare assistants to look for a bit of happiness," she said.

Cardiff University reported an increase in applications to study medicine of 15%.

Rhys Thornett, 18, from Birmingham, is hoping to start studying medicine at Cardiff.

He said the application process felt "a lot harder than it would have in a normal year".

"The entrance score required in the aptitude tests increased," he said.

"It's a great privilege to be a doctor. I think for me the pandemic has certainly enhanced my decision to go into medicine."

Applications to study postgraduate medicine and child nursing at Swansea University have risen by 28%.

Keith Lloyd, head of its medical school, said: "We have 92 places on our graduate entry medicine course, we get 1,000 applicants of whom we interview 300. We could take 200 of them easily."

Across the UK, applications to study medicine have gone up by around 20%.

Prof Lloyd said he thought applications would continue to rise next year.

"We had the demographic dip a few years ago, so there are going to be more young people wanting to go to university and wanting to study health-related courses."

Health Education and Improvement Wales and the Welsh government announced in December 2020 more than £227m to expand health professional training.

A spokesman said: "This means an additional 85 posts will be created across postgraduate medical training.

"More than a 9% increase in nursing, midwifery, allied health professions and healthcare science, representing the highest-ever level of health professional commissioning Wales has seen.

BBC Wales Live is available on the BBC iPlayer