{"id":7242,"date":"2016-01-06T13:19:15","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T13:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=7242"},"modified":"2016-01-06T16:55:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T16:55:56","slug":"paying-for-privilege-to-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=7242","title":{"rendered":"Paying for privilege to care"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Protesters will take to London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s streets this Saturday to demonstrate against Tory plans to cut student nursing bursaries in England and replace them with loans.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The plans, which were announced in last year’s Autumn Statement, will affect people studying a range of professions including nursing, speech and language therapy, radiology, occupational therapy, mental health nursing and midwifery. \u00c2\u00a0 After August 2017 nursing courses will be fee paying, leaving students with more than \u00c2\u014150,000 of debt if they undertake a three year degree.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is despite student nurses working up to 37.5 hours a week on less than the minimum wage for half of their training and graduate nurses starting on an average salary of less than \u00c2\u014123,000.\u00c2\u00a0The Conservatives claim that axing the \u00c2\u01416,000-a-year bursaries will save \u00c2\u0141800m a year and drive desperately needed recruitment through increased enrolment on self-funded university courses.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cynical cost cutting <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But Unite says the move is a cynical cost cutting exercise that will deter people from taking up a career in healthcare and leave the NHS ever more reliant on costly agency staff. During the 2014-15 financial year alone, locum staff cost the NHS \u00c2\u01413.3bn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Student mental health nurse and Unite member, Hollie Roblin, is one of 80,000 healthcare students currently supported by a bursary. The 27-year-old says that without the funding she wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been able to undertake her course at Huddersfield University.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hollie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s situation is similar to many other nursing students, who are on average 30-years-old. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a mature student and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done a previous degree in history, so I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have been able to afford it. The bursary has enabled me to study and pay the rent,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Hollie said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bScrapping the bursary will hit mature students especially hard. People who have children, second degrees or financial pressures will be cut out. Half of our time is spent on placements working full time and we have to complete assignments during those periods as well. If you had to pay \u00c2\u01419,000-a-year tuition fees for that what would be the incentive?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hollie is not the only student nurse to feel this way. A recent Unison survey of 2,000 trainee nurses found that 90 percent would not have taken up the vocation without the bursary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hollie also questioned whether young applicants coming straight from school, who will be more likely to apply for the courses because they have less financial and personal responsibilities, are ready to perform such demanding frontline roles.
\nExperience <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying that every 18-year-old would be a disaster, but generally people at that age do not have enough experience. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think many 18-year-olds would be effective on an acute mental health ward. A lot of people who are not suited will choose to do it and then drop out and a lot of people who could make a real difference won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even apply,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Hollie explained.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite national officer for health, Barrie Brown, says the Tory plan is simply a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bcost-cutting exercise\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 hinged on heaping future healthcare professionals with an unfair debt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking at is people paying for the privilege to work,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u015bA significant proportion of nursing students are mature and these changes will particularly affect them. Quite clearly all it means is that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have less people coming through and our reliance on overseas health professionals and agency staff will increase.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MPs will debate the proposals\u00c2\u00a0on Monday January 11<\/a>, following a petition which has been signed by 146,000 people. Before the debate a protest match will be held, which starts at St Thomas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Hospital in central London\u00c2\u00a0at 12 noon this Saturday<\/a> (January 9).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Protesters will take to London\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s streets this Saturday to demonstrate against Tory plans to cut student nursing bursaries in England and replace them with loans.   The plans, which were announced in last year’s Autumn Statement, will affect people studying a range of professions including nursing, speech and language therapy, radiology, occupational therapy, mental health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[458,80],"wps_subtitle":"Unite fights plans to make health workers pay for training","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7243,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7242\/revisions\/7243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}