Nursing applications are down on last year – should we be worried?
Michael Salmon is News Editor at Wonkhe
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As press coverage this morning has focused on, the 2023 January deadline figures for nursing applications are noticeably down on last year – 33,570 from 41,220. DK looks over the rest of the data here.
The nursing figures are also lower than 2020 – the last normal January – but slightly above 2019 levels. This does suggest that there’s more going on here than simply a reversion to the pre-pandemic norm, but it’s complicated – applications from 18 year olds, for example, were higher this year than in 2020 (these represent around 30 per cent of the total). Applications from those 35 and older, around another 20 per cent, are also up on 2020. It’s the age groups in between that have seen a fall.
University Alliance, long an advocate for joined-up thinking on nursing recruitment and capacity, has summed it up pretty neatly:
During the Covid-19 pandemic, applications to study nursing significantly increased as people felt inspired to contribute to the amazing efforts of the NHS. Application numbers are now returning to pre-pandemic levels, perhaps as the pandemic effect wears off, and perhaps as media coverage of the NHS crisis has highlighted how challenging a career in nursing can be.
As University Alliance also makes clear in its statement, as well as inevitable supply-side effects, nursing as a subject is hugely affected by the capacity of the NHS to provide placements – a similar issue affects medical student numbers, as we’ve looked at recently on the site. Last year only 52 per cent of nursing applicants were accepted onto courses – it’s a competitive field.
Generously you could say that a fall in nursing applications may not have a straightforwardly proportional impact on the number of students taking up places in the autumn, given the limitations to programme size – perhaps the success rate can simply rise. The bleaker take is that both constrained supply and now weaker demand mean that the sufficient training of nurses is becoming a chronic long term problem – especially as demand is not evenly distributed and many universities will already be struggling to meet their targets.
On the capacity side, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) in January agreed new programme standards which will allow students on nursing courses to use simulated learning methods for up to 600 of the 2,300 practice learning hours required – meaning that students are able to take part in a whole range of technology-enabled learning activities that count towards their professional accreditation, reducing the amount of time the NHS needs to have them in overstretched healthcare settings (although there is still a lot of this required of course).
The higher education sector made a strong case for the quality and rigour of innovations developed during the pandemic to allow nursing students to get hands on experience – set out, for example, in last October’s Pandemic Powered Improvements report from the Council of Deans of Health, ranging from virtual reality to simulations run in collaboration with drama departments.
Given the tangible progress made on creating additional capacity for more students – based on pedagogy and staff ingenuity – and despite the continuing issues with finding sufficient placements, any longer term trend which sees student applications for nursing courses fall is one to be concerned about.
Yes, we should be worried given the chronic shortage of nurses (and others) in the NHS, where they provide the bulk of the care. Placements remain a concern, and more creative thinking around this would help.
The issue around simulation is that to do it well its expensive, so we are essentially seeing a cost part from placement provider to the University. Universities can apply for placement tarrif, but this does not cover the costs.
Interesting that you say “Last year only 52 per cent of nursing applicants were accepted onto courses – it’s a competitive field.” and “many universities will already be struggling to meet their targets.”
Universities are very much struggling to meet targets, and 2023 will be even worse.
Although there are a lot of applicants, many of them are entirely unqualified. Working at a Scottish university which already has really wide access to nursing (our SIMD profile actually has a larger proportion from the most deprived areas than any other quintile) we have many applications from people who have no qualifications at all – and unfortunately they are rejected (mostly referred to colleges, which do a great preparation). So the top line of applications translates into “unless you are applying for children and young people’s nursing, if you meet the basic requirements, you’re in!”
Someone needs to ask why recruiting more students is the answer to people leaving the profession in the first 5 years. We have to make nursing a career people want to remain in – rather than replacing them all with new recruits every year.
“Someone needs to ask why recruiting more students is the answer to people leaving the profession in the first 5 years.” A good question, though one with a myriad of answers, from my own observations once the glamour wears off the sheer hard work, long shifts and shift rotations that affect the work/life balance are a major factor.
Your comment “Although there are a lot of applicants, many of them are entirely unqualified.” illustrates a huge part of the problem, Nursing when it became a degree requiring ‘profession’ excluded many who would have been good at the ‘care’ aspect, those would have become state-enrolled and auxiliary nurses in the past, were and are excluded.
Don’t get me started on the anti-male nurse stance many older female nurse tutors/lecturers still have!
https://www.medscape.co.uk/viewarticle/scotland-faced-exodus-nursing-staff-2023a10002zy