Darzi's promise to trainee nurses delayed for another year

The delay comes as politicians from both main parties vie to convince nurses that their professional development is close to their hearts.

Hospital trusts that host student nurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals currently receive no funding to cover the costs of supporting those trainees. The DH’s own calculations – seen by Nursing Times - show this leaves placements underfunded by approximately £400m a year, while undergraduate medical placements are overfunded by around £120m.

In June 2008 then health minister Lord Darzi pledged to end this anomaly and provide support for all clinical placements, emphasising that all members of the clinical team were equally valued.

DH officials have discussed giving hospitals £90 per student per week to contribute to – but not cover in full - the support costs of student nurse placements. They proposed to pay for this by cutting the overfunding of undergraduate medical placements.

The original timescale for introducing those changes was the end of 2008 but this was postponed until April this year.

Nursing Times has learnt that the reform has been postponed for another year following lobbying by hospital chiefs and medics.

Royal College of Nursing head of policy and development Howard Catton said the move was “disturbing” and symptomatic of the dominant position medical groups enjoyed in discussions around workforce planning, training and funding.

“Going into the new economic climate and funding pressures, this raises fundamental questions about how money for training is distributed and shared,” he said.

The delay also means it will be much harder to retrain the nursing workforce to shift care out of acute hospitals and into communities and patients’ homes, he said.

The Council of Deans of Health has also been pressing the DH to implement the change.

Policy officer Catherine Deakin told Nursing Times: “We continue to press for this principle, on the basis of equality - all disciplines need funding for placements.”

Around 22,000 students start pre-registration nursing courses each year, meaning more than 60,000 student nurses could be affected by the delay.

In effect, nurse training placements and junior doctor posts are competing for a share of the £120m overfunding the DH proposes to take from undergraduate medical training.

Tom Dolphin, vice chair of the BMA’s junior doctor committee, said it was wrong for funds to be taken from doctor training to be given to nurses.

“If the nursing profession thinks they need more funds for their training, that’s for them to argue, but it should not be taken from the medical profession. It’s a separate issue. You shouldn’t rob Peter to pay Paul,” he said.

As exclusively revealed on nursingtimes.net, Conservative Party leader David Cameron said nurse training courses are too academic and should involve more hands-on experience.

King’s College London associate dean Professor Alison While said she challenged his view that nurses do not have hands-on-experiecne.

“I don’t think [hand-on-experience] should be at the expense of good strong education that enables them to engage in evidence based practice and advanced clinical decision making,” she said.

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