Universities may close nursing courses, warn academics

20 July 2010 | By Ben Clover

Increased local control of nurse education and training could lead to the closure of courses and have adverse effects on workforce planning, academics have warned.

The white paper includes plans to phase out centrally allocated training budgets - the multi-profession education and training levy - with trusts and other providers freed to commission their own professional development locally.

Trusts are concerned with immediacy, and with student nurses you need to plan between three and five years ahead

The white paper says: “It is time to give employers greater autonomy and accountability for planning and developing the workforce, alongside greater professional ownership of the quality of education and training.”

Academics have warned this could result in some trusts opting to take more of their post-registration training in-house rather than commissioning universities. This loss of revenue could have a knock-on effect of making it un-economical for universities to continue offering pre-registration education as well, resulting in the closure of courses.

A senior nursing academic, who asked not to be named, said: “If trusts decide to do in-house continuing professional development it would seriously damage universities’ business. It would jeopardise their pre-registration business because of the staffing issues it would create.”

Introducing Nursing Times Learning

Online training units, written and reviewed by experts. Earn two hours’ CPD and a personalised certificate for your portfolio.

Subscribers get five FREE learning units and non-subscribers can access each learning unit for £10 + VAT.

Click on the topics below to get started:

He also warned devolving the commissioning of pre-registration training to acute trusts could result in “short-termism” in workforce planning.

He said: “Trusts are concerned with immediacy, and with student nurses you need to plan between three and five years ahead. This gives us some cause for concern.”

Council of Deans chair Sue Bernhauser said the changes must not be allowed to cause “another boom and bust” in education, which could endanger the “sustainability” of the workforce.

The white paper also left questions over who would decide the structure and content of training in future, a role currently undertaken by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

The white paper says “the professions will have a leading role” in deciding the structure and content of training, and quality standards. But it is unclear if “the professions” means groups representing nurses, such as the Royal College of Nursing, instead of or as well as the regulator.

An NMC spokeswoman said: “We will be seeking clarification regarding the education commissioning proposals.”

Readers' comments (29)

Natalie Jewell | 20-Jul-2010 1:56 am
Already young people have less interest in nursing than they did in previous decades.

10 years ago we were warned that health visitors would be retiring in droves as there were so many reaching pensionable age but nothing was done to replace them.

We're already covering vacant caseloads and working ourselves into the ground.

The pressures are going to get worse and worse. It's all very well reducing training because of the the deficit but is in house training going to be regulated to safe levels so that competent nurses are qualifying and is the shortfall ever going to be made up?
Unsuitable or offensive?
mike | 20-Jul-2010 5:07 am
Not just that Natalie, but is in house training even assured? You know yourself how difficult it is to get ANY training out of the NHS ward managers!
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 12:58 pm
My advice is if you want to do any courses to enhance your knowledge or skills is to privately fund it. If you depend on the NHS it just wouldn't happen.

Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 1:25 pm
Perhaps we should dig into the archives and find the old School of Nursing curricula. It will take time to recreate the hospital based training but would it be all bad?
Let's not dismiss this out of hand but take the opportunity to look at the good from all areas and put together a training and career structure that encourages the right people into the profession.
Let's get rid of the need for literacy and numeracy courses as part of nursing education - they should be pre-requisite to acceptance!
Unsuitable or offensive?
mike | 20-Jul-2010 2:02 pm
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 12:58 pm I absolutely disagree with that. Why should I privately fund my CPD?

Whilst CPD is MANDATORY for Nurses, and whilst our enhanced knowledge and skill benefits the wards and our patients far more than it does ourselves (in terms of better pay/job prospects), then the NHS SHOULD bloody provide it!

Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 2:32 pm
HELLO everyone....! If the NHS doesn't provide free mandatory training then go elsewhere! Actions speak louder than words, and if management continue to make fatal mistakes, loose great staff etc, then they will inundated with public complaints, they will be out of a job and they will have to CHANGE...
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 3:01 pm
In my opinion different NHS Trusts do not represent the same quality, in other words those who cannot provode us with a quality, well planned and free of charge CPD don't deserve our attantion as a potential place of work. And yes, it requires from us to be mobile and flexible. Instead of getting position at the nearest Trust we should take a time and efford to fish the best one. It is difficult AND possible.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 4:23 pm
I've paid for all my cpd that wasn't mandatory training. I'm not going to held to ransom by a manager for going on a bill and ben PBN (paint by numbers) course every 5 years. I never apply for a job that requires ENB 666 or whatever since the ENB went out of existence over 10 years ago.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 4:32 pm
Far better to spend the money on staff sickness, writing yet another reactive SOP in the most risk averse organization yet conceived and compensation claims from injured or insulted patients than spend a penny on education or professional development. COZ YOUR WORTH IT, INNIT.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 6:30 pm
What workforce planning? If it does happen its being done by 1000 chimps locked in a cage tapping away on excel. With an odd banana shaped formula being applied to the cells.

Fact is undergraduate nurse training is mostly a waste of time and money for everyone involved. The turn over of nurses, the number leaving the profession after 5 years is enormous. Universities have a vested interest in training as many nurses as possible - they get more money, and employers have a steady stream of wide eyed neophytes ready to join the ranks of the burnt out twice a year. We wouldn't need to train as many if we could actually keep a few more interested in sticking around for ten or twenty years.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Alyson Davenport | 20-Jul-2010 8:10 pm
I agree with one of the anonymous commentators above- where would be the equity and quality assurance in courses run locally. There is already disparity within different universities (as there was when hospitals managed their own nursing schools). Don't know the answer but agree with the cynicism that enabling qualified staff to go for education purposes is already a problem despite agreements for CPD.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 10:43 pm
I am a single mum trying to stay afloat, funding my daughter at university. I am a good and motivated nurse with years of experience but I feel it's becoming a two-tier system of nurses who can afford to fund themselves for training and those of us who genuinely can not. All nurses should be given the means, encouragement and opportunity to progress. Training and funding seems a very hit and miss affair. I was really fed up when a senior sister told me it would look good if I was willing to fund my own iv course.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 11:32 pm
i am a frustarted HCA who is so desperate to become a nurse. I love learning new skills and studying but i simply could not afford to give up my salary to train. Suerly it is a good thing to train staff who have ward experience already or those who demonstrate from the onset of their employment the opportunity to, support through learning, their colleagues. I would happily work until deemed competent and worthy, infinitum if needed, on my currently salary in order to achieve a long awaited desire to achieve my career goal.
have been discussing this with SN's today and i totally understand their concerns and yours!! if in the future the above becomes a reality. I have total admiration and respect for all you staff nurses out there i think you are amazing.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 21-Jul-2010 0:22 am
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 10:43 pm

Get a job in A&E or ITU. Suddenly all that ward crap falls away as they need to have you trained to do the job. Just move jobs, there are plenty of areas of nursing where there are big education budgets.

"It would look good if you funded your own I.V. course" I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Like an I.V. course is of any merit.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 21-Jul-2010 8:02 am
As a pratice nurse i get 5 days study leave over 3 years which is ridiculous as more demands are made and goal posts constantly moved (spirometry, copd, asthma, diabetes, heart failure, CHD, wound care blah blah blah) I have no problem with this, it is as it should be but last year i had to take 12 days unpaid to attend courses in order to feel 'up to date'. No thanks from GP's and no appreciation either, admittedly I didn't have to do it but how then can I call myself competent and fulfill my role if I dont?
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 21-Jul-2010 6:08 pm
Anonymous | 20-Jul-2010 11:32 pm

I don't know if it is possible for you but if it is move to a trust which supports HCA secondement. My trusts bumps secondees up from band 2 to band 3 whilst they are students to make up for the loss of unsocial hours.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 12:20 pm
Iam not surprised by the university reaction.Ialso think youngsters are losing interest in training as nurses due to the increased academic requirements,Itrained in 1970 and have no interest inputting myself through the stress of adegree for very little advantage.Although Iaccept that technology has changed nursing a lot what about basic nursing care WHich a lot of graduates think is beneath them.At the end of the day it is the clients who suffer.
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 1:53 pm
Anonymous 12:20pm
I TOTALLY Agree... I have been nursing for 28 years. Moved jobs last year to be told a need a degree to be able to give training to the degree nurses when they come on to the wards in 2014. i will ony have 1 yr to go before i retire in 2015. LOL
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 2:46 pm
Interesting to read all the comments. It is a very worrying prospect to bring CPD in house. I have worked as a clinical educator and know that in house courses vary tremendously in terms of quality. In cases where the quality is good often the courses are very much focussed on the needs of the employer, which although understandable, I believe to be short sighted. What in house training doesn't allow is a practitioner to benefit from all the learning opportunities that a university based course can offer. Having the chance to integrate with people from a variety of backgrounds and places of work is an immense learning opportunity. When I did my masters course I learned alongside nurses from different specialities as well as physios and OT's. Consequently I believe it helped me to reflect upon my own practice and work place and enabled me to improve the service that patients recieved. As far as the lack of interest in nursing goes my local University have had in excess of 800 applicants for 100 or so places. I'm told all those applicants have been of a very high standard. Perhaps things are changing!
Unsuitable or offensive?
Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 7:56 pm
It is about time that the government stopped the incessant waste of money and resources that go toward training the wrong staff to do ludicrous courses. I fully support this white paper as a step in the right(sic) direction.
Unsuitable or offensive?