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The NHS workforce plan for England will be more than 10,000 short of its targets for nurses by 2025 due to a rapid decline in student numbers, a new analysis has shown.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has today warned that lower levels of student recruitment in England mean the health service is facing an “irretrievable downward spiral” in workforce planning.
“The financial crisis engulfing universities means the courses that supply the nurses of the future are under severe risk”
Patricia Marquis
As such, the union has called on the next government to take urgent action to address the issue, including coming up with a plan to increase student nurse applications for the 2025-26 intake.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, published last year, promised to grow the nursing workforce in England’s NHS from around 350,000 nurses to around 550,000 by 2036-37.
It has also pledged to increase the number of nursing training places by 80% to 53,858 by 2031-32.
But in the last four years, the number of people starting nursing courses in England has dropped by an average rate of 6.7%, warned the RCN.
The union’s analysis found that, if this trend continues, the next two years would see the NHS in England short of 10,952 nursing students to meet the ambition by 2025.
To get back on track, applications would need to increase by 4,466 (11%) and the number of acceptances would need to rise by 2,330 (10.4%) every year.
The RCN warned that such rapid increases would not be possible without serious government intervention.
At the RCN’s annual congress, being held in Newport this week, the organisation unveiled its UK general election manifesto, which outlined policy demands for the next government.
Among the policy asks in the manifesto was for a commitment from the next government to fund nursing degrees in every UK country, with a job guarantee for all graduates.
It comes as, in 2017, the government removed the bursary in England which ended government-funded tuition.
Nursing students must now pay university fees of over £9,000 a year, which the RCN said had caused applicant numbers to drop significantly.
Patricia Marquis, executive director for RCN England, said: “Making the next generation of nurses pay £9,000 a year to work in our NHS was a grave mistake.
“Applications have collapsed and now the NHS is falling behind its own recruitment targets just one year into the long-term workforce plan.
“The ground is being laid for workforce shortages to deepen, impacting patient care.”
Patricia Marquis
Meanwhile, nursing courses are also under threat from the financial crisis affecting universities, said the RCN.
In May 2024, the college surveyed 545 nurse educators from England.
Six in 10 (61%) said they were being directly affected by redundancy, a staffing restructure or recruitment freeze.
Ms Marquis added: “The financial crisis engulfing universities means the courses that supply the nurses of the future are under severe risk and staff are being made redundant.
“This threatens to send student recruitment into an irretrievable downward spiral.
“Fewer courses and fewer teachers mean fewer nurses – it’s that simple.”
Ms Marquis said the trends were “deeply concerning” and required “swift and decisive action”.
“The next government must fund tuition fees for nursing students, reintroduce universal maintenance support and stabilise the higher education sector,” she added.
Responding to the analysis, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Sir Julian Hartley, said: “The predicted shortfall in nurses would exacerbate existing pressures on the NHS, including long waiting times, delayed treatments and staff burnout.
“The worrying decline in student nurse numbers and potential closure of nursing courses could also lead to a long-term negative impact on the NHS workforce, undermining trusts’ efforts to recover from the pandemic and tackle care backlogs.”
Much like the RCN, Sir Julian called on the next government to commit to “nurturing the health and care workforce” including by fully funding the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
“Better investment in nursing education and support for student nurses is also vital to shoring up staff levels at this critical time,” he added.
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