Cut in nursing student places ‘will do irreparable damage to patient care’

Unions have condemned a reduction in the number of nursing student places in Northern Ireland to 1,025.

The Department of Health said it is making decisions on spending reductions with “great regret” amid the “impossible position of having to fulfil conflicting responsibilities”.

“These include living within the budget we have been given, acting in the public interest and safeguarding services. This is not a circle that we can square,” a department spokesperson added.

“Simply ignoring financial constraints is not a realistic option, and not just because it would be in breach of legal or professional responsibilities. Any overspend this year would simply mean even greater budgetary pressures next year.”

The department said 1,025 was the funded baseline figure in place by 2020.

This number was boosted after the New Decade New Approach political deal in January 2020 with an extra 300 training places annually to address staff shortages.

The department said the deal pledged to deliver an extra 900 nursing and midwifery undergraduate places over a three-year period.

“As well as maintaining the baseline 1,025 total, the department will look to expand nursing places in future if the funding permits,” the spokesperson added.

Rita Devlin, the Royal College of Nursing’s Northern Ireland director, said her members are “bewildered” by the cut.

“It is unimaginable that the Department of Health has been put in the position of having to cut the number of student nursing places for 2023-2024 because of the political and financial crisis in Northern Ireland,” she told the BBC.

“We currently have almost 3,000 vacant nursing posts in the health service here and a cut of this scale will do irreparable damage to patient care for years to come.”

Anne Speed from Unison said more nurses are needed.

“We cannot deal with major workforce issues and improve outcomes for the public without investing in developing the nurses that the health service needs,” she said.

“Unison will be leading a delegation of health trade unions on Wednesday in a further meeting with the Secretary of State, following his budget announcement in the absence of an executive and assembly.

“We will make clear to the Secretary of State that he cannot withhold funding that should flow through the Barnett formula to the Department of Health for a decent pay offer for health workers here.

“We will also make it clear to him that proposals to reduce nurse training places are unacceptable and that our health service needs to be properly resourced.”