NHS Bursaries — House of Commons, 2016-05-04
Topic: Health
David Thomas Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), and I congratulate the shadow Health Secretary on securing this debate as it highlights the current pressures that we are facing in the NHS. We start with 20,000 nurses and we lose 3,000 a year. Perhaps that is where the Migration Advisory Committee report gets its figures from when it says that we need to plug a gap of 3,000 places. The Government say that we need 10,000 new nurses a year. In stark terms, those figures show that there is a loss percentage, so perhaps we can work out how many people drop out and what it costs, and use that money in the NHS by putting it back into an apprenticeship scheme such as that proposed by the Government. It seems that the magic figure of 3,000 plays into the Government’s thinking about creating 10,000 new nurses The Opposition say that we lost 2,400 nurses under the previous Government, whereas the previous Government said that we have 3,000 more. Which is correct? The truth is that both are: it depends when we take the measurement. If we measure from election to election—that is, from May 2010 to May 2014—we find that the Prime Minister was correct to say that we have 3,000 new nurses. We also take into consideration health visitors and midwives, and physiotherapists to an extent. The Opposition say there was a drop of 2,400 between September 2010 and September 2014. Believe it or not, recruitment and loss are seasonal We have to be grown up and address these concerns. How do we do that? The answer is, quite simply, through reform. We must open up instead of having the fixed bursaries whereby we attract in the region of 20,000 nurses a year but lose 3,000 a year. I say this with all due respect to the Opposition, but under the previous Government the Opposition said that reforming education would deter people from all backgrounds—I would not say "disadvantaged" backgrounds—from going to university. I did not go to university, but my son is at university and is the first member of my family ever to go to university. That is an aspiration, and an accolade. Here we are, five years down the line, with 10,150 new places since 2010 for students going to university. We must open up that philosophy for the NHS. What is the difference between a student nurse starting on £21,000 or thereabouts a year and a junior doctor starting on £26,000? Nurses are as valued as doctors in the NHS; I certainly feel that. Why do some have bursaries, even though we are not attracting the numbers, and why do some not have them? My own trust, which is in difficulty at the moment but has already overcome many difficulties and is out of administration—it should be praised for that—has been abroad recruiting nurses, but we could get the nurses by taking away the bursary scheme and opening it up to academia, trying to get more people in from inside the system through apprenticeships. That could plug the gap and allow us to have home-grown skills and jobs here Reform will plug the gap and solve the skill shortage. It will also be fair in bringing nurses into line with doctors in the profession. Mature students who want to go into the vocation of nursing and be correctly accredited through the academic route will see that as a good starting place for a career that starts at £21,000. In all honesty, the career path does not end at £21,000; it goes up the pay scale, as it does for doctors In conclusion, I thank all colleagues for this measured debate. This is a subject that we need to address on both sides of the House.