Number of student nurses is falling

BMJ 1998;317:430 ( 15 August )

News

Number of student nurses is falling

Alex Brooks, BMJ

The number of student nurses entering training in England has been falling substantially since 1994, casting doubt on the likelihood of the government achieving the higher numbers of nurses that it plans for the NHS.

Figures published by the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting, which administers nursing courses, show that only 45589 nurses are currently in training--a drop of 8000 (15%) in four years. The board says that the drop is mainly due to a shortage of applicants.

The health secretary, Frank Dobson, announced after the comprehensive spending review that there would be an extra 15000 trained nurses and a further 6000 training places (1 August, p 300). However, there are already more student nurse places available than people to fill them. Anne Widdecombe, the shadow health secretary, asked where these extra nurses would come from and criticised the . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?